MANY MINDEDRegulators price the cost of plugging AI into its own generator
The Public Utility Commission of Texas approved a net metering arrangement on July 24 for a 260-MW AI data centre co-located with a wind farm of roughly matching size, 265.5 MW. The order, dated July 23, requires the facility to be capable of shedding its entire load within 30 minutes during a grid emergency, with physical breaker disconnection if necessary, and bars it from earning money through paid demand response programmes tied to the arrangement. ERCOT is to give 60 minutes' notice when practicable; the operator may volunteer to respond in ten.
This is the second data centre planned for the site. Crusoe, the developer, and Ensign, the load customer, argued the second one should escape the curtailment condition already imposed on the first, since together they draw about 525 MW — well past what the wind farm can generate. Commissioners rejected that, reasoning that letting one load run while the other is curtailed would defeat the point of keeping generation available to the grid. They largely adopted ERCOT's proposed reliability conditions rather than carving out a project-specific exception.
Co-location is the fastest route to powering AI without years in an interconnection queue, and this order keeps that route open while pricing it honestly: a behind-the-meter campus is a guest of the grid, not a private island. One industry observer read the ruling as stopping short of killing co-location but effectively requiring real backup capacity — an untested assumption, by his own account.
It is the first significant test of SB 6, the state law giving ERCOT authority to disconnect large loads. A pending Amazon and Vistra application beside the Comanche Peak nuclear plant is the next case to watch.
Source: Utility Dive