For two years the story in Texas has been the size of the number. The interconnection queue crossed 400 GW. The 2032 peak forecast hit 367,790 MW, more than four times the all-time record. Every week brought another gigawatt of data center demand that may or may not exist. The number got so large it stopped meaning anything, which is the problem when roughly 70 percent of the large-load requests are data centers and nobody can tell you which ones are real.

This week Texas started building the machinery to find out. The Public Utility Commission approved a new rulebook for sorting mature projects from paper ones. Congress introduced a bill to settle who pays for the grid those projects need. A developer ordered two gigawatts of gas to skip the queue entirely. And the EIA quietly noted that while everyone argues about future demand, solar is about to outrun coal on the actual grid. The gold rush is over. The sorting has begun.

"The Old, One-at-a-Time Process Wasn't Built for Hundreds of Gigawatts"

On Thursday the PUCT approved ERCOT's "Batch Zero" process, the first batch-study approach to large-load interconnection adopted by any grid operator in the country. Instead of evaluating each large load one at a time, the way the queue has always worked, ERCOT will now study them in grouped batches. Batch Zero applies to loads of 75 MW and greater, and the entry ticket is what matters: a project has to show it already has financing and site control to get in. Paper projects need not apply.

The math behind the reform is the justification for it. ERCOT fielded 225 new large-load requests in 2025 alone, against a legacy system designed for a queue of 40 or 50. Studying them sequentially was never going to clear. The framework also builds in two pressure valves the grid badly needs: a pathway for customers to self-supply with onsite generation, and a pathway for loads that agree to be curtailed when local transmission gets tight. Both reduce the amount of new wire ERCOT has to build for demand that might evaporate.

The timeline is the part to circle. ERCOT says it will notify applicants of their project classification by August 2026, with a final transmission plan to follow in fall 2027. August is the first time anyone outside the data rooms gets a real number for how much of that 400-plus GW is actually financed and sited. Mark it.

Circe Orders 2 GW of Gas and Skips the Line

If Batch Zero is the front door, Circe Energy spent the week walking around the building. On June 16 the developer ordered roughly 2 GW of natural gas generation from Cummins to power a behind-the-meter AI campus in the Permian Basin, a 1,950-acre site built for gigawatt-scale compute. The gensets, a mix of Cummins HSK78 and QSK60 high-horsepower units, ship in phases from later this year through 2030, with the campus energizing in 2027.

This is exactly the behavior Batch Zero's self-supply pathway anticipates, and exactly why that pathway exists. A developer sitting on cheap Permian gas and 1,950 acres does not need to wait for ERCOT to study a transmission upgrade. It can bring its own power, energize on its own schedule, and treat the grid as optional. The Cummins order is the second multi-gigawatt behind-the-meter gas deal in West Texas this quarter. It will not be the last. When the queue takes years and the gas is under your feet, the rational move is to not join the queue.

Washington Decides It Cares Who Pays

The same day the PUCT voted, the cost-allocation fight went federal. Representatives Gabe Evans and Kathy Castor, the ranking member of the House Energy Subcommittee, introduced the bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, which would require new loads of 100 MW or greater to pay for the transmission upgrades they trigger rather than spreading the cost across existing customers. It is the federal echo of the argument Texas has been having all year about whether a household's bill should rise to wire up a hyperscaler.

It did not arrive alone. The same week, FERC issued show-cause orders to the ISOs and RTOs, ERCOT included, directing them to address large-load interconnection and cost allocation. With more than 300 data-center-related bills introduced across the country in the first six weeks of the year, the politics have caught up to the megawatts. The open question for Texas is whether a federal 100 MW threshold lands above or below where the state ends up drawing its own line. Two regulators, same fight, and the bill for the buildout is the prize.

While Everyone Argues, Solar Passes Coal

Here is the number that actually moved the grid this month, as opposed to the ones moving through committee. The EIA now projects that ERCOT solar will out-generate coal for the first time ever in 2026, at roughly 78 billion kWh of solar against 60 billion kWh of coal. Through June, wind and solar together supplied 40.2 percent of ERCOT generation, with solar alone covering 27.7 percent of the June peak.

This is the unglamorous counterweight to the demand panic. While 400 GW of theoretical load works its way through a brand-new sorting process, the thing keeping the lights on during a record-demand summer is the cheapest, fastest capacity Texas can build, and it is being built faster here than anywhere else. Roughly 40 percent of all U.S. solar additions this year are landing in Texas. The state that argues loudest about whether the grid can keep up is quietly winning the race to add the supply.

What to Watch Next Week

The August Batch Zero classifications. This is the one. ERCOT's first cut of which projects are mature will be the closest thing we get to a real number for financed, sited data center load in Texas. Watch the total MW that survives, and which named campuses make the list.

FERC compliance. After the June 18 show-cause orders, watch whether ERCOT files a response and whether cost-allocation reform gathers any momentum before summer recess.

The summer peak. Extreme heat in late June or July could break the 85,508 MW record. ERCOT has pegged the odds of a July emergency at 0.21 percent, which is the kind of number that looks small until the afternoon it isn't.

More behind-the-meter gas. Circe and Cummins won't be the last. Watch for additional Permian and West Texas bring-your-own-generation announcements from developers pre-empting the Batch Zero timeline.

Disclaimer: The Grid Report is Barrio Energy's market intelligence product. Nothing here is investment advice. Links go to primary sources wherever possible; form your own view.