The Texas Reliability Entity has added key risks related to artificial intelligence and large loads as part of its annual Reliability Performance and Regional Risk Assessment.
ERCOT’s Regional Entity says AI “introduces some new challenges that we need to be cognizant of.”
Texas RE’s David Penney, director of reliability services, said during a June 16 webinar that the organization looks at three aspects of AI: as a large load, operating patterns and cybersecurity.
“When you look at the load patterns the AI-type data centers put on the grid, it’s not the typical pattern that you can see from a normal data center,” he said during the “Talk with Texas RE” session. “Most normal data centers have a fairly flat, stable load protocol. [With] AI-type data centers, it’s more of a sawtooth pattern with very steep ramps, up and down ramps over short periods.”
Penney said AI data centers’ ramps will stress the grid’s voltage support in local areas. And then there’s the cybersecurity risk brought by their operations.
“AI brings significant opportunities for the electric grid to be able to modernize and make quicker decisions,” he said. “When we incorporate this, there’s also a huge cybersecurity risk along with it. Machine-learning type models can possibly be compromised by an adversary.”
Texas RE assesses AI integration risks as having a moderate impact on the ERCOT region. “As AI increases in scale and integration, however, associated risks may increase in both likelihood and impact,” it said, promising to monitor AI developments.
The entity assessed the “disorganized integration” of large loads as a likely risk — and the largest — with major impacts, an escalation from its 2024 report. It said the load integration’s pace and scope and forecasts of negative reserve margins beginning as soon as 2026 are expected to have a major effect on bulk power system reliability.
ERCOT’s large-load interconnection queue gained more than 25 GW of capacity in March. The queue contains more than 136 GW of study requests, with a little more than 4.5 GW energized since 2022.
“While a number of these resources will likely not materialize, the rapid increase in load on the system presents significant forward-looking challenges. These load increases reflected in future reserve estimates have been striking,” the report says.
The Texas Legislature has passed a law that directs the state’s Public Utility Commission to create a framework for adding data centers and bitcoin miners without stressing the grid or saddling other consumers with an unfair share of infrastructure costs. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has yet to sign the legislation.
The Texas RE says the generation necessary to meet the increasing demand continues to “evolve toward” variable resources and energy storage. Solar generation has increased exponentially and, along with wind, produced 34.8% of total energy in 2024, the report said.
Storage capacity neared 10 GW in 2024 and is forecasted to almost triple to 27.5 GW over the next two years. That places “increasing dependence” on inverter-based resources, the RE said.
Penney said the ERCOT region had one hour in 2023 where renewable penetration was over 70%. That increased to 39 hours in 2024 and already has exceeded 100 hours in 2025.
Still, the report said the region’s reliability performance “remains strong while navigating these challenges.”
The assessment comes on the heels of NERC’s annual State of Reliability report, which was released June 12. (See NERC State of Reliability Report Highlights Progress and New Challenges.)
