A Big ERCOT Projection, and Some Skepticism
ERCOT is projecting a potentially huge surge in power demand over the next six years, fueled by—yes, you you guessed it—data center construction.
The council said peak demand may reach 367,790 megawatts in six years, a vast increase from the all-time peak of 85,508 megawatts in August 2023. Data centers will account for more than 60% of that, Naureen S. Malik reports.
We’ve never seen that magnitude of demand growth on a single US grid. It would require the equivalent of adding almost 300 large nuclear reactors.
The grid operator ...