Texas Transmission and the 765 kV Buildout
Coverage of the 765 kV Eastern Backbone, the STEP plan, CCN dockets, congestion, and where new wires are and are not coming in ERCOT. 11 articles from The Grid Report, newest first.
- ERCOT Sorted the Queue and Published Nothing, So the Market Built Its Own Scoreboard
On September 3 at 3:55 in the afternoon, ERCOT sent Market Notice M-A080326-04 to transmission and distribution service providers, telling them which large loads had been conditionally included in Batch Zero. It...
- Around the Queue, Not Through It: $35 Billion in Nueces County, 400 Miles of 765 kV, and a Batch Zero List Three Days Late
At 7:16 p.m. on Monday, August 31, ERCOT issued Market Notice M-A080326-03, informing the market that it "requires additional time to complete its data validation and due diligence processes" and would release the...
- "The Only Meaningful Remedy Remaining": Three Judges Recommend Killing the Line, and ERCOT Concedes April Is Gone
Thursday, August 20 was a busy day in Austin. At 1:52 in the afternoon, three administrative law judges filed a Proposal for Decision recommending that the Public Utility Commission deny Oncor and LCRA Transmission...
- "A Slap in the Face to the Legislative Branch": PUCT Votes on 765kV Lines Nobody in Austin Says They Approved
For six months the story in Texas transmission has been ERCOT and the transmission and distribution utilities racing to keep up with an interconnection queue growing faster than anyone can classify it. This week...
- Wires or Pipes: Moving 7.6 Gigawatts 100 Miles, Two Ways
Here is the question, stripped of everything else. You have a gas field. You have a data center 100 miles away that wants 7.6 gigawatts. You can build a power plant at the gas field and run a transmission line to...
- "Already Fully Approved and Energized" — $9.1 Billion for 191 MW, and 8,766 MW Nobody Counted
Greg Abbott's August 3 letter did not stop a single data center from being built in Texas. What it did was reprice them. It sorted the market into two piles — megawatts that already hold an approved...
- "ERCOT Will Not Notify": 205 Gigawatts Miss Their Own Deadline
Today was supposed to be the day roughly 205 gigawatts of proposed Texas load found out whether it counted. Under the Batch Zero interconnection study process, ERCOT was to notify every transmission and...
- Berkeley Lab Says U.S. Power Prices Are Flat. Your Texas Bill Is Not.
A team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published a paper in the December 2025 issue of The Electricity Journal called "Factors influencing recent trends in retail electricity prices in the United States."...
- The Bill Comes Due: Texas Lawmakers Target $1 Billion in Data Center Tax Breaks as New Megaprojects Break Ground
Every week I sit here and tell you about the capital pouring into Texas energy infrastructure. Billions here, gigawatts there. This week is no different — Aligned Data Centers just broke ground on a 540 MW campus...
- While Regulators Scramble, the Capital Doesn't Wait: A $14 Billion Week in Texas Energy
Last week I wrote about the communities pushing back — San Marcos, Lacy Lakeview, Fort Worth — places where the local math on water, roads, and tax abatements wasn't adding up. The resistance is real. But this...
- The Buildout vs. the Backlash: Fermi's 17 GW Private Grid, $33B in Contested Transmission, and $780M in Fresh Capital
Texas energy infrastructure is moving in two directions at once this week — and if you're paying attention, both of them matter.
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