ERCOT puts a label on about 1.5 gigawatts of Texas data centre load in a single week

Core Scientific and Ionic Digital both got conditional Batch Zero sign-offs from the state grid operator, the clearest sign yet that its frozen queue of large power requests is moving again.

14 September 2026 · 4 min read · L1 Power and land · The Pulse, 10 September 2026

In this story: ERCOT

What happened

Two Texas computing companies disclosed this week that ERCOT, the state's grid operator, has conditionally classified large blocks of their power draw inside Batch Zero, the process ERCOT uses to sort a backlog of large electricity requests, most of them for data centres. Core Scientific's filing says its planned 431 megawatts at Hunt was conditionally approved as Base Load, that the existing 300 megawatts at Pecos was conditionally approved as Base Load, and that a further 300 megawatts at Pecos was approved as Studied Load. A separate 371 megawatts at Denton is existing or previously validated load and is explicitly not part of this week's Batch Zero classification, so it is not counted here. Ionic Digital's release says ERCOT provisionally classified the remaining 466 megawatts of its Ward County campus as Base Load, which would bring that site to its full planned 700 megawatts.

That is about 1.5 gigawatts carrying a new Batch Zero label this week. The two numbers are not the same thing, and the difference matters. Roughly 1.2 gigawatts of it is capacity that is not yet drawing power: Hunt's 431 megawatts, Pecos's additional 300 and Ionic's 466. The remaining 300 megawatts at Pecos is load that already exists and has now been given a classification. And the labels themselves differ: Base Load capacity is preserved on the basis of prior study work, while Studied Load, which covers the additional 300 megawatts at Pecos, is still subject to allocation inside the study.

Why it matters

ERCOT told a Texas Senate panel on 29 July that it was tracking 474 gigawatts of large-load connection requests in total, about 90 percent of them data centres, and it paused its first Batch Zero study batch on 3 August while the state verified which requests were real. Set against that, this week's activity is both real and small: about 1.5 gigawatts classified, on top of 166 megawatts for a third company, Soluna, the week before. At that pace, working through 474 gigawatts would take years. What has changed is not the size of the backlog but the fact that it is moving at all.

What would change it, and when

Every classification described here is conditional or provisional. Ionic Digital's own release says its classification remains provisional and subject to ERCOT's ongoing verification, audit process and final classification determination, with oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and Core Scientific's filing uses similarly conditional language throughout. Final determination by the Texas utility commission, with no date disclosed in either document, is the next formal step before any of these numbers is locked in.

What we do not know

Neither document says when construction or power delivery begins at any newly classified site. Because these figures come from the disclosures of publicly traded companies, there is no way to tell from them how much of ERCOT's much larger backlog belongs to privately held operators who do not have to publish this kind of document, so this week's visible 1.5 gigawatts is probably an undercount of everything actually moving through Batch Zero. We also do not know how much of the Studied Load capacity will survive allocation when the study finishes.

What this changes for you

For Texas electricity customers, a queue that clears faster means the state's data centre boom moves from paperwork toward actual construction and electricity draw sooner, which matters for local grid planning and for how tight the state's power supply gets at peak demand. None of this week's classifications sets a firm date for when power is delivered, and all of them remain conditional pending the state's final sign-off.

Sources

Everything above is written from these. Each line says what that document proves.

1. sec.gov: Core Scientific's own filing, source for the Denton, Pecos and Hunt megawatt figures, for the Base Load and Studied Load split at Pecos, and for Denton being outside this week's Batch Zero classification.
2. globenewswire.com: Ionic Digital's own release, source for the 466 megawatt figure, the Base Load classification, the 700 megawatt campus total and the provisional status.
3. sec.gov: Soluna Holdings' own filing from the previous week, already on this site, used to show this week's classifications are part of a pattern rather than an isolated event.
4. ercot.com: ERCOT's own testimony document, already on this site, source for the 474 gigawatt total queue figure.
5. ercot.com: ERCOT's own market notice, already on this site, source for the 3 August Batch Zero pause.

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