• Oncor, Sempra, Constellation and Vistra back Abbott’s audit to cull speculative projects.
• NRG’s 1.2 GW hyperscale deal adds generation, limits transmission and shifts costs to customers
• Kodiak, Energy Transfer, Solaris and Atlas see grid uncertainty accelerating behind-the-meter demand

Texas utilities, power producers, and data center developers have largely embraced Gov. Greg Abbott’s pause on data center grid interconnection approvals as a way to separate credible projects from speculative ones, while some developers are already structuring projects around the tighter scrutiny.

NRG Energy offered one of the clearest examples, last week disclosing a 1.2 GW Texas hyperscale deal at a data center project designed to address the concerns behind Abbott’s directive. The Abbott order seeks to assess projects’ potential effects on grid reliability, transmission needs, water use and other local infrastructure before allowing them to advance.

NRG CEO Robert Gaudette said the planned combined-cycle gas plant at the project would bring more generation than the associated data center is expected to consume, reduce the need for incremental transmission and shift the investment burden to the customer.

“That’s why we believe the project is well-positioned in Texas,” Gaudette said.

A number of data center developers with projects in Texas – such as Galaxy Digital and Cipher Digital, among others – also made note of the fact that they believe their projects, as submitted in the Batch Zero process, already comply with the requirements requested by Gov. Abbott.

“We just know that all the assets that we have control over that we’ve applied for, we’ve done everything and we’ve crossed every T and dotted every I, and we feel very confident about where we will land as that process unfolds,” Galaxy Digital’s President and CIO Chris Ferraro said on the company’s earnings call last week.

‘Reordering the process’

Of all of Texas’ transmission-owning utilities, Oncor and CenterPoint have been the most forthcoming with what is expected to make it through the Batch Zero process under the original rulemaking approved by the PUCT in June.

CenterPoint confirmed 17 GW in its territory were submitted to the process with the expectation that 14 GW would be eligible either as a base load (10 GW) or studied load (4 GW) via the study. Oncor, meanwhile, reported 44 GW of submitted load expected to be eligible down from its massive 127 GW load forecast submitted before the Batch Zero criteria were finalized.

In the company’s 2Q26 earnings call, Oncor CEO Allen Nye pointed to the PUCT’s open meeting scheduled for Aug. 20 as the next “critical event” as ERCOT will seek an exemption to adjust the process’ timeline. Both Nye and Sempra CEO Jeff Martin expressed support for Abbott’s move, which Martin argued is more of a “reordering of the existing process” by moving validation to the front end rather than an outright halt on interconnections.

“If it takes a little bit more time in the process stage to get to what we think is a durable framework that allows us to invest capital with more certainty, we think this will be time well spent,” Martin said.

Reframing public perception?

Other utilities including Constellation and Vistra have also confirmed they have projects in the Batch Zero queue, though exact figures have not been disclosed. Leaders from both of those companies also expressed support for Abbott’s move with Constellation Chief External Affairs Officer Dave Dardis predicting the information requested “can be provided quickly” without “a meaningful delay in the process.”

“We see this as a temporary measure that is manageable,” Dardis said.

Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez even predicted data center responses to questions regarding water usage through the auditing process would be so good they would reframe public perception of data center resource consumption. That would be a heavy lift in the state as the rush of data center developments planned in Texas have left the populace with strong anti-data center resentment. Polling from the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Politics Project completed last month found 56 percent of respondents were opposed to building data centers in their communities, with 42 percent saying they were strongly opposed, the plurality of responses. Less than a third, 29 percent, said they supported the notion.

Culling the queues

Vistra CEO Jim Burke acknowledged that customers “want more regulatory clarity” and agreed that he’d “like to see the queues culled,” as well, predicting only 12 to 15 GW of data center load would make it to installation by 2030.

“Concerns about generation supply and demand are overstated, so policy makers have recognized they need better information,” Burke said.

Burke projected a pause in the Batch Zero process for “a couple of months,” though he admitted the exact timeframe remains up in the air pending the timeframe and results of the audits. While he said he expected baseload projects to ultimately move through, he noted studied load, made up of less mature projects that were submitted to the process without a predetermined allocation, could run into more issues.

On the project development side, FlexGen’s Executive VP of Business Development Jason Abiecunas told NPM firms are, like utilities, “digesting” Abbott’s announcement, but predicted that energy storage will “be a key part of how [policymakers] are going to solve some of these interconnection problems.”

“Texas, if anything, has proven to be a creative problem solver and has facilitated an incredible amount of investment in infrastructure, so I will always be bullish on its ability to figure it out,” Abiecunas said.

BTM bulls

The pause has also brought out behind-the-meter bulls that see ERCOT uncertainty as an accelerant for private generation.

Kodiak Gas Services CEO Mickey McKee said the action “does nothing but benefit behind the meter power solutions providers like ourselves.” Energy Transfer Co-CEO Mackie McCrea said most of the data center projects it is pursuing are already behind the meter, making the grid interconnection controversy largely irrelevant to its customers.

Solaris Energy Infrastructure Chairman Bill Zartler said rising EPC, transformer and transmission costs are pushing behind-the-meter generation toward becoming “the next generation of power.”

And Atlas Energy Solutions is already seeing that shift translate into longer commitments. The company signed its first behind-the-meter contract, a 120 MW PPA at Socorro, Texas, and said its broader commercial opportunity pipeline was already roughly 8 GW to 10 GW before Abbott’s announcement.

CFO Blake McCarthy said growing uncertainty around grid access has fundamentally changed customer thinking.

“If you rewound 18, 24 months ago, people were talking about, hey, five, seven-year contracts. Now we’re talking 15–20 because they’re just, ‘Hey, Bud, we’re just not going to even think about the grid.’”