Grid Board. Peak this week: 63.4 GW (prelim, Oct 28, per Impedance Match's ERCOT daily; record 91.1 GW, Jul 22) | Large-load queue: 474 GW (Aug report, no newer figure confirmed) | Houston Hub TB4: $31.91/MWh (7-day avg, Oct 23 to Oct 29) | Reserve margin: n/a this week (November MORA could not be confirmed)
Texas has spent three months telling the data center industry to wait, and the largest utility in Houston just raised its spending plan by $4 billion. Both things are true at once, and the gap between them is the story of this week.
On Tuesday CenterPoint Energy reported third quarter earnings and lifted its ten-year capital plan from $66.7 billion to $70.7 billion, pulling $1.5 billion of it forward into 2026 to 2030. The state, meanwhile, is still inside the pause Governor Abbott ordered on August 3. If you site or finance load in ERCOT, the useful question is what exactly is paused, because the answer is narrower than the headlines suggest.
CenterPoint Raises the Plan and Keeps the Load
The October 27 release reports GAAP net income of $331 million, or $0.50 a share, and says the larger plan should save customers about $5 billion over the decade. The load numbers sit in the investor deck: 2030 load growth stays at 14 GW, about 12 GW of it large-load requests eligible under Batch Zero and roughly 2 GW from distribution and lower-voltage transmission growth.
Read that against the pause. A utility earning a regulated return on every dollar of wire does not raise a capital plan because it expects the load to evaporate. CenterPoint is telling investors that the Batch Zero study delay moves the timing of interconnections, not the destination. The deck does not claim ERCOT will approve any particular project. It is a statement about what the utility expects to be asked to build.
What the Freeze Actually Froze
There are two separate actions, and they hit different projects. The first came out of Abbott's August 3 directive to the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to verify and audit data center projects before they advance. ERCOT suspended the Batch Zero classification notices that had been set for August 7 and paused the Batch Zero transmission planning study. The commission approved ERCOT's good-cause exceptions at its August 20 open meeting. Responses to ERCOT's information requests were due October 12, and the audit report is expected December 10.
The second came on September 21, when Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to pause issuance of data center related permits until ERCOT finishes its review. That one reaches projects that never touch the ERCOT queue, including self-powered gas sites that need air permits. The August action did not.
So a project waiting on a Batch Zero study and a project waiting on a TCEQ air permit are stuck for different reasons, on different clocks, with different agencies to call. Calling it all "the pause" is how developers end up lobbying the wrong office.
Kilby Shows Where the Second Pause Bites
Chevron's Project Kilby is the clearest test. The June 22 announcement described a 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for 2.67 GW of co-located gas in Reeves County near Pecos, with first power targeted for 2028. Chevron's power solutions vice president Daniel Droog told Semafor on October 1 that permitting had "caused some slowdown or potential delay" while the 2028 target still stood. The same reporting says the final investment decision could slip from the end of 2026 into 2027.
I found no newer Chevron statement, so treat the October 1 comments as the current position. The irony is plain enough: the project built to avoid the interconnection queue is the one exposed to the permit pause.
Voters Noticed, and the Tax Bill Is Growing
A University of Houston Hobby School poll reported by ABC13 on October 27 found 69% of likely voters very concerned about electricity prices and water supply, and 65% about outages. Fewer than 20% said they were not very concerned. I could not confirm the sample size for the data center questions, so I am leaving it out.
The cost side has a number too. At a July 27 Senate Finance hearing, the Comptroller's chief revenue estimator put the data center sales tax exemption at $14.6 million in its first biennium, 2014 and 2015, and a projected $3.3 billion for 2028 and 2029. Expect the poll and the exemption to be in the room when the legislature convenes in January.
The Pipeline Behind the Pause
Modo Energy's October 21 tally tracks 92 GW of data center projects that are connected or requesting connection in ERCOT: 11 GW operating or expanding, 12 GW under construction, 15 GW committed and 54 GW proposed. Set that beside the 474 GW in the large-load queue and the sorting becomes clear. The load that is real is a fraction of the load that is requested.
For anyone holding land or a power position, the 12 GW under construction is not waiting on the audit. The 54 GW proposed mostly is.
What to Watch Next Week
November 6, Vistra earnings. Its last call put Comanche Peak at end of 2027 and said ERCOT has off-peak headroom, so listen for any change to load-growth guidance.
PUC open meeting agendas. I could not retrieve the November dates, so check the commission calendar for the large-load batch study rule expected this fall.
November 19, ERCOT Batch and CTP Workshop 4b. Batch planning is on the agenda, which is where the post-audit process starts to take shape.
December 10. ERCOT's target for the audit report that decides when the Batch Zero study restarts.
Disclaimer: The Grid Report is Barrio Energy's market intelligence product. Nothing here is investment advice, and Andi is not your broker. Links go to primary sources wherever possible; form your own view.
