Grid Board. Peak this week: n/a this week (no official daily peak sourced; record about 91.1 GW, Jul 22) | Large-load queue: 474 GW (June figure, latest public) | Houston Hub TB4: $45.52/MWh (7-day avg to Nov 5) | Reserve margin: n/a this week (December MORA not verified)

Texas voted on Tuesday, and the data center pause was on the ballot in everything but name. Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat Gov. Greg Abbott, and Abbott conceded by phone that night. Within a day, Riot Platforms disclosed a lease that would put a single AI tenant on 910 MW outside Corsicana.

Those two facts sit uneasily together. One says the political ground under large load in Texas is moving. The other says the people writing the checks have read the same news and signed anyway. This issue is about what separates the two: who holds the risk, and on what dates it gets tested.

The Pause Gets a Political Owner

Start with what the pause is, because the election coverage blurred it. On Aug 3, Abbott sent PUCT and ERCOT a letter directing a comprehensive verification and audit of data center loads in the Batch Zero study process, covering loads of 75 MW and above. It is an audit with a freeze attached to it, not a statute. Nothing in it expires on an election date.

The dates that matter are in December. ERCOT is due to file its Batch Zero eligibility report and a community impact report with the commission on Dec 10, with a presentation to PUCT on Dec 17. Utility Dive's account of the schedule differs slightly (it mentions a commission report a week earlier), so treat the exact days as a range until ERCOT's own filing posts. The community impact review reaches down to facilities of 25 MW and up, which is where the pause stops being only a hyperscaler problem.

Now the new variable. Hinojosa's position, as she laid it out before the election, is that Abbott should pause new data centers until lawmakers act, and that data center companies should have to show households will not pay more for power or water. Some coverage goes further, with an immediate moratorium on day one and a residential rate freeze. I could not find either in her own materials, so I am not printing them. The narrower reading is still enough to matter: the person who takes office in January has publicly asked for the pause to continue until the Legislature writes rules.

The calendar does the rest. The Legislature convenes in January, so any rule that sticks gets written after the audit reports land, not before. Abbott holds the pen on the current pause until then, and I found nothing from his office since Tuesday on whether he intends to hold it, narrow it or let it lapse after Dec 17. For anyone with a site in the 25 to 75 MW band, the useful question is not who won. It is whether the community impact review turns into a gate or stays a disclosure. Nobody has said which.

One thing left out on purpose: reports that Democrats flipped the Texas House. The seat totals I found conflict, so it waits for a settled count. If it holds, the January rulemaking fight gets harder for developers, not easier.

Corsicana: 910 MW at $130 per Kilowatt-Month

Riot Platforms put the Corsicana terms in its Q3 filing, and they are unusually specific. The press release exhibit describes a 15-year triple-net powered land lease for 910 MW of critical IT load on a 332-acre contiguous parcel, with about $28 billion of total contract value and roughly $1.8 billion of average annual rent. Rent starts at $130 per kW per month and escalates 3% a year.

Check the arithmetic, because it holds. $130 per kW-month on 910 MW is about $1.42 billion in year one. Compound 3% over 15 years and the average lands near $1.76 billion, which rounds to Riot's number. The rent is a fixed obligation on the full 910 MW, not a usage charge.

The capital structure is the more interesting part. Per the exhibits, Riot funds $2 million per IT MW of site and electrical work, the tenant is reimbursed $4 million per MW through rent credits, and the reimbursements are funded with non-recourse project debt sized to contracted rent. Total capex is about $5.5 billion. Against $1.8 billion of average rent, that is a yield on cost near 33% by my arithmetic, not a figure Riot printed in that form. Delivery runs 400 MW in September 2027, 200 MW in January 2028 and 310 MW in July 2028.

Riot describes the tenant only as "a leading Frontier AI Lab." Press reports have attached a name to it. Riot has not, and neither will this issue.

Why it belongs next to the election. A 15-year fixed-rent lease with delivery dates in 2027 and 2028 is a bet that the interconnection path through ERCOT clears before the lease economics strain. Lenders sizing debt to contracted rent are underwriting the tenant's credit, not the site's political weather. If the pause hardens into rules that slow energization, the delivery schedule is where it shows up first, so watch the conditions-to-delivery language in the next two quarterly filings.

NRC Finishes Its Safety Review of Dow's Reactors

On Oct 30 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission released its final safety evaluation for X-energy's Long Mott project, four Xe-100 reactors, 320 MWe in total, to serve Dow's Seadrift operations on the Gulf Coast. The safety and environmental reviews are both done. The construction permit is not issued, and the NRC said to expect an announcement soon.

For ERCOT this is a signal, not megawatts. Seadrift is an industrial site that wants steam and power behind the fence, the same logic pushing data centers toward onsite generation. A permit for a first-of-kind advanced reactor at a US industrial plant would be the first real data point on whether the NRC process can run on a timeline a developer can finance. It changes no 2027 or 2028 supply number.

The Gas Queue Figure Going Around Is Not Printable

A widely shared item this week says ERCOT's gas interconnection queue is up 85% in a year, with gas at 80 GW. I tried to source it and could not. The 80 GW in ERCOT's September update appears to be total generation requests, up 23% since June, not gas alone. The gas figures I did find run 64 GW in May and about 79 GW in the third quarter from a secondary summary, against 43.7 GW a year earlier. The direction is up, sharply. The exact percentage is not something I can stand behind, so I am not publishing it.

What to Watch Next Week

Nov 10, Fort Worth. A 4 p.m. work session where the city's Data Center and Infrastructure Commission presents its report, then a 6 p.m. council meeting with the first required public hearing on a proposed moratorium. The city's page puts the tentative council vote on Feb 16, 2027, so next week is a hearing, not a decision.

NRC construction permit for Long Mott. The agency said soon. Any day is possible.

Anything from Abbott's office on the pause. A statement on whether the audit freeze ends, narrows or continues after the December reports would reprice every Batch Zero timeline in the state.

ERCOT's November board materials. A fresh large-load queue figure would replace the June number on the Grid Board. The December MORA reserve margin is the other slot I could not verify this week.

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.