Overview
- PUCT and ERCOT on Friday published new rules that require data centers to pay for transmission upgrades, complete tougher interconnection screening, register operations, and reduce power quickly when ERCOT orders it.
- The agencies framed the steps as measures to keep residential electric bills down by preventing large data-center loads from diverting existing power or passing upgrade costs onto ratepayers.
- Regulators also asked lawmakers to expand the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act, clarify agency authority to set reliability rules, and require data centers to report water and electricity use for better planning.
- Diode Ventures said it scrapped a proposed East Texas project after concluding it could not meet the new directives, showing the rules are already affecting developer decisions.
- The moves follow months of local bans and moratoria and shift the siting fight from city councils into statewide regulation and the legislature, which could slow or reshape future data-center growth in Texas.