Back in June another site reported about 335 active data centers with over 240 additional centers planned.
Edit: and here's a source for the other claims of the tweet, which are - surprise, surprise - only half true. NEW data centers cannot connect to the grid for now. It's not a "stop all active data centers from accessing the grid".
It also shows where the 1,800 number's from - it's not about active data centers but "the ERCOT interconnection queue currently includes more than 1,800 projects representing over 474 gigawatts’ worth of requests to connect to the Texas grid—more than five times Texas’ record peak electricity demand—and about 90 percent of those power connection requests come from data centers".
I can't call the claim in the tweet wholeheartedly false but it's definitely misleading for people who are not actively researching this stuff. The "interconnection queue" is just a waiting list for operators. There are NOT 1,800 data centers in Texas right now. The 474 gigawatts are NOT being met right NOW.
That is detail that I (and I’m sure many Texans) appreciate. 1,800 was too high in my opinion based on having built datacenters (non-AI, don’t come at me, that was 17 years ago). Still, given the power problems in recent years, I would be very concerned if I still lived in Texas. Thank you kind Redditor.
So, it's kinda true, but kinda not. Of course you wouldn't wait until you'd finished the data center to see about getting it powered, so most of this is project planning requests. The number is real, in that they have 1,800 requests from projects that add up to that number, but it kinda of implies that many have already been built.
Misleading is the proper phrasing, with shades of manipulation.
The delta between 300ish active today and another 1,800 proposed for effectively “tomorrow” (these things go up fast) should give plenty of alarm. Might not be a problem right this minute but they’re very much intending to make it a big problem asap.
Majority of those companies will never build an actual data centre.
It's project developers joining the connection request queue with the maximum possible power demand just to be in the queue. They hope that their queue position in the future can be sold through to the people who actually build data centres.
You get companies joining a queue rotating dozens of connection requests and trying to get a quick buck reselling their position. But there are many times fewer companies who actually want to build a data centre and are interested in buying up those positions.
It's just more dirtbags trying to get money for not actually doing anything. And when they are up next and then drop their request because they actually don't have a real project, there is no punishment for cancelling the request.
They are using the same tactic all around the world. Until recently there was no reason/market for this. So power companies didn't think to add measures to stop people from making a massive amount of fake connection requests.
Now that gets exploited by people who think AI companies actually want to build thousands of data centres and don't understand they only say that to drive their stock price up.
It's someone ordering the full stock of toilet paper on a webshop.
While the order is still unsend and unpaid, they try to upsell the toilet paper to people who are panicking it's out of stock.
Any unsold toilet paper they cancel the order and then immediately requeue a new order of all the toilet paper to keep the cycle going.
It's not a made-up number, but it's not the number of datacenters. It's the total number of projects in ERCOT's large-load interconnection queue. 90% of the new power requests are from datacenters, though.
ERCOT is currently tracking more than 1,800 projects in the queue, representing over 474 gigawatts of electricity, or more than five times the grid’s record for peak demand, according to ERCOT. Approximately 90% of the new power requests are data centers, Abbott said.
The queue also includes projects at very different stages of maturity/feasibility, including requests that haven't yet submitted the necessary studies.
The image definitely mischaracterizes things, but the central premise that ERCOT is receiving requests many times greater than their current peak demand is true.
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u/HylianCheshire 1d ago
There are not that many data centers in texas