Texas Utility Regulators to Vote Sept. 11 on What Data Centers Must Pay to Plug In

The Public Utility Commission of Texas will vote Sept. 11 on a rule that would make a data center put up $50,000 for every megawatt it wants from the grid before anyone studies whether the grid can carry it.

The rule covers any customer seeking 75 megawatts or more, the threshold the Legislature set in 2025. Before the state grid operator will study the request, the customer has to prove it controls the land, disclose its permits, its construction schedule and its backup generators, pay a study fee starting at $100,000 and post the security. It pays $50,000 a megawatt again, non-refundable, on signing the interconnection agreement, and covers the full cost of the wires to its own fence — money utilities may no longer recover from other ratepayers. Commissioners cut that per-megawatt figure in half in March. Staff filed a 282-page adoption order Sept. 3 that the Dispatch could not open before publication, so whether the lower number survived is unconfirmed.

The rule’s other half is aimed at phantom demand. Developers shop one project to several utilities at once, and the queue counts each request. The new rule would make them disclose substantially similar requests elsewhere — serial number, load zone, megawatts, timing — and says a company’s identity and size are not confidential business information it can withhold. Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an audit of every data center in line Aug. 3, citing about 474 gigawatts of requests, more than five times the state’s record peak demand. The grid operator suspended its first round of large-load studies days later, and developers left waiting have been objecting since.

Three 765-kilovolt transmission lines are also up, and two carry recommendations to reject them. State administrative law judges found in August that Oncor and the Lower Colorado River Authority had not proved Texas needs either the Bell County-to-Big Hill line — 223 miles, $1.68 billion — or the Big Hill-to-Sand Lake line, and that notice to roughly 1,400 landowners was defective. Commission staff disagreed on the first and urged approval of a route. A third line, proposed by AEP Texas and CPS Energy across 14 counties, drew a recommendation to approve; commissioners heard argument Aug. 28, then reopened the record rather than vote.

The Bell County decision is due by Sept. 22. Also on the agenda: a settled Southwestern Electric Power plan for a gas plant near Hallsville and a coal-to-gas conversion at the Welsh plant, and three requests by wind and solar farms to sell power directly to the data centers beside them.

Meeting at a glance

Commissioners

• Thomas J. Gleeson — chairman; former commission executive director; appointed 2024.
• Kathleen Jackson — Beaumont; engineer; former Water Development Board member.
• Courtney K. Hjaltman — former state public utility counsel; appointed 2024.
• Morgan Johnson — former deputy general counsel to the governor; appointed 2025.
• Patrick Rhode — consultant; former White House and federal emergency management official.

Roster from the commission’s own page, cross-checked against the governor’s appointment releases. One caveat: the only appointment release found for Commissioner Hjaltman gives a term that expired September 1, 2025, and no reappointment announcement was located. Texas law lets a commissioner serve until a successor qualifies, so she appears to be serving as a holdover; the Dispatch could not confirm that with the agency. Switchboard: (512) 936-7000.