# ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) > Texas's independent grid operator managing 90% of the US state's electricity load for 26 million customers, central to data-center demand and grid reliability debates. **Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads: · 4 takes · 3 lenses · 1 regions ## What it is ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, is the independent system operator (ISO) for the Texas Interconnection, the alternating-current network covering 214 of Texas's 254 counties and serving roughly 26 million customers. The Texas Interconnection is deliberately isolated from the US Eastern and Western Interconnections, a design choice maintained since the 1940s to keep Texas intrastate power sales outside Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) retail-rate jurisdiction. ERCOT operates as a membership-based non-profit under a 12-member board, with the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUCT) as its primary regulator. It manages dispatch across more than 145 GW of generation capacity and 52,700 miles of high-voltage transmission lines but owns no generation assets or wires itself. Texas runs a fully deregulated competitive wholesale electricity market, launched in 2002, in which ERCOT acts as the market operator and reliability coordinator. ## History ERCOT traces its lineage to the Texas Interconnected System (TIS), formed in 1941 to power Gulf Coast aluminum smelters during World War II. Texas utilities kept the grid within state borders to avoid federal regulation, a posture ratified by US courts and maintained through subsequent decades. ERCOT itself was constituted in 1970 when the North American Electric Reliability Council (now NERC) formed following the 1965 Northeast blackout. Texas retail deregulation in 2002 opened most of the state to competitive retail choice, making ERCOT the clearing mechanism for the nation's largest competitive wholesale power market. The defining modern crisis was Winter Storm Uri in February 2021: roughly 250 people died, millions lost power for days in sub-freezing temperatures, and the grid came within minutes of an uncontrolled cascading collapse. The Texas Legislature responded with Senate Bill 3, requiring power-plant and fuel-supply weatherization. In 2023, lawmakers passed House Bill 1500 (sunset reauthorization), Senate Bill 2627 establishing a US$7.2 billion Texas Energy Fund for new dispatchable capacity, and a constitutional amendment authorizing the fund. ## Current state As of mid-2026, the Texas grid faces its sharpest demand inflection since Winter Storm Uri. On 3 June 2026, ERCOT forecast a [summer peak above 92 GW](/zh/n/ercot-summer-2026-record-demand), surpassing the all-time record of 85.5 GW set in August 2023, driven primarily by data-center and large industrial load. The grid has added roughly 10.5 GW of new capacity since summer 2025, including about 5 GW of battery storage, 4 GW of solar, and 1.5 GW of gas. Total installed capacity exceeds 145 GW, but the interconnection queue tells a different story: ERCOT is tracking roughly 438 GW of large-load requests, approximately 89% from data centers, against a grid that peaks in the 85-92 GW range. To filter speculative applications, the PUCT on 18 June 2026 approved ERCOT's [Batch Zero process](/zh/n/ercot-batch-zero-large-load-2026), allocating connections of 75 MW or more by transmission availability and applicant readiness (financing and site control) rather than first-come-first-served. Batch Zero classifications are due 7 August 2026. ## Relationships ERCOT answers to the PUCT, a five-commissioner body whose members are appointed by the Texas Governor. Because the Texas Interconnection is intrastate, FERC has no jurisdiction over ERCOT's wholesale market rates, though FERC retains backstop reliability authority under federal law. Texas's grid has no direct alternating-current interconnection with neighboring states, meaning it cannot easily draw emergency power from the Eastern Interconnection (through MISO or SPP to the north and east) or the Western Interconnection, a constraint exposed sharply in February 2021. Limited high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) ties provide only modest cross-border capacity. Market participants range from large investor-owned transmission utilities, Oncor and CenterPoint Energy, to hundreds of competitive retail providers. Data-center operators are now the dominant source of new large-load interconnection requests, with crypto-mining farms a secondary contributor. ## What to watch Whether the summer 2026 peak breaks 92 GW and how battery storage performs during evening net-load hours when solar generation drops. How many of the 438 GW in large-load applications survive the Batch Zero readiness filter, with ERCOT classifications due 7 August 2026. The pace of transmission buildout, which planners say must roughly double to support even the credible subset of data-center load. Longer term, whether Texas legislators revisit the grid's interstate isolation to gain emergency import capacity from neighboring interconnections. ## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens) ### official record - **ERCOT** (United States, en) — ERCOT's institutional self-description covering governance structure, market role, and grid statistics for the Texas Interconnection. Source: https://www.ercot.com/about - **ERCOT** (United States, en) — ERCOT's June 2026 explainer of the Batch Zero large-load connection process, setting out the 75 MW threshold, readiness criteria, and timeline for working through the 438 GW interconnection queue. Source: https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2026/06/18/ERCOT-Trending-Topic-New-Batch-Connection-Process-for-Large-Electricity-Users.pdf ### state government profile - **Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts** (United States, en) — State-government profile of ERCOT covering history from the 1941 TIS origins, 145 GW generation capacity, 52700 miles of transmission, market structure, and 2023 legislative reforms including SB 2627. Source: https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/economic-data/energy/2023/ercot.php ### federal regulatory record - **Federal Energy Regulatory Commission** (United States, en) — FERC's market profile of ERCOT documenting the Texas Interconnection's regulatory status, market design, and the commission's limited jurisdiction over the intrastate grid. Source: https://www.ferc.gov/industries-data/electric/electric-power-markets/ercot ## Across the graph - Related: [[ercot-batch-zero-large-load-2026]], [[ercot-summer-2026-record-demand]] - Entities: Ercot, Texas, Electricity, Data Centers, United States --- Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/zh/n/ercot-dossier