ROUND ROCK, Texas — A slew of “pent-up” interconnection requests from large load customers submitted by Oncor Electric Delivery has pushed the ERCOT queue for interested data centers and crypto miners to over 410 GW.

The large load interconnection queue stood at 238 GW in early March. However, ERCOT staff said they have received 137 new interconnection submissions since then totaling about 140 GW of new large loads by 2036. Oncor submitted about 130 GW of those requests, almost as much as the grid’s current nameplate generation capacity of about 150 GW.

“It looks like there were some pent-up projects that had not yet gotten into the queue,” ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said while meeting with reporters March 31 during ERCOT’s annual Innovation Summit. “They all kind of landed in a one-week period.”

Vegas delivered the same news to the Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee April 1 during its first interim hearing before the 2027 legislative session begins in January. Committee members were unfazed.

“Import the sun directly to Texas. Hook it up to our grid,” cracked committee Chair Charles Schwertner (R).

Load projections are submitted to ERCOT by transmission companies, who work directly with the interested customers and have “varying approaches to complying” with state law, Vegas told senators.

“ERCOT is continuing to work through new processes to study large loads in a coordinated manner as part of transmission system planning,” Oncor told RTO Insider in an email. “Oncor periodically formally requests new study assignments for large loads seeking interconnection to our system. To ensure ERCOT has appropriate visibility during this process development, we recently provided an extended scope of our requests. Oncor will continue to provide updated interconnection requests as appropriate.”

The Public Utility Commission has filed a proposed rule change that would establish interconnection standards for large load customers. The rule would require those customers to execute an intermediate agreement that makes certain disclosures before their projects’ inclusion in an interconnection study and to post $50,000/MW in financial security. Within 30 days of the completion of the study, the customers would have to execute an interconnection agreement that updates their disclosures and pay a nonrefundable $50,000/MW interconnection fee (58481). (See Texas PUC Proposes Large Load Interconnection Standards.)

“Those same requirements could be used to effectively filter down the load forecast to a realistic number,” Vegas said.

Asked how long the “gold rush” of large loads flocking to Texas will last, PUC Chair Thomas Gleeson told the committee: “This is something that will definitely be here for the foreseeable future. I really believe, from the companies I’ve talked to, that … it may not be this upward trend. It’s such a high slope. But I do think we’re going to continue to see data centers look to locate here and get power from us for at least five to seven years.”

“This cycle is about a five-year cycle we’re going to see develop,” Vegas said, “and then we’ll have to evaluate what’s ahead.”

In the meantime, the Texas grid will be in the Legislature’s crosshairs. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has issued eight interim charges for senators to study in preparation for the 2027 session. The first four all relate to ERCOT and the grid, including:

• • assessing the state of the grid;
  • managing the effect on 765-kV transmission lines on landowners’ rights;
  • modernizing transmission and improving affordability; and
  • managing data center growth.

The House of Representatives’ interim charges focus on similar issues.

“These interim charges reflect issues Texans have asked the Senate to study,” Patrick said in a statement. “When the 90th regular legislative session begins … the Texas Senate will move quickly to address these priorities and many more.”