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Comment by ProllyInfamous | Hacker News Reader

The best thing Texas could do (for both data center proliferation and air quality) would be to have ERCOT (it's in-state-only grid operator, which avoids most federal regulations) join up with the rest of the continental United States' electric infrastructure [0]

This would allow for renewables (mainly WIND in Texas) to be sold out-of-state, and would also mitigate peaking events (e.g. winter 2021 disaster) – this would reduce the need for in-state peakers (instead: buy power from another US state).

But as the saying goes: "everything is bigger in Texas" – including the self-induced isolation. Doing this would require Texas to submit to federal energy regulations... which I'm doubtful will ever happen voluntarily.

src: retired Texas datacenter electrician (IBEW)

[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmiss...>

[Texas' isolated grid operator:] <https://www.ercot.com/>

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You can do that now with dc lines. There was a 5gw 3 way intercpnnect almoat over the finish line maybe a decade ago. Being regulated by the feds is not necessary or even desireable for this.

Look up the "Midnight Connection" (when a local grid operator in Texas connected to Oklahoma just to test the legality).

At present, Texas is allowed (and does) minimal energy transfers, using mostly DC-DC ties (but also one AC interconnect in Rusk Co, Texas, for emergencies); but the limit is a small single-digit percentage of usage (<3%, IIRC).

>There was a 5gw 3 way intercpnnect almoat over the finish line maybe a decade ago.

Trés Amigos (the project you refer to) was disbanded in 2016. Its major backer "backed out."

5GW is nothing for ERCOT. Last year, the peak power used was just under 90GW. This year, all of the existing currently filed datacenter projects add another 400GW to that. And that’s just for the state of Texas.

There’s no way that anyone on this planet can add over 400GW of production in a single year. Not even if you put the entire combined capacity of the planet together, could you add another 400GW to that in a single year.

This is going to take decades to add 400GW to the ERCOT or US grid, regardless of how they are interconnected. Over 90% of these datacenter plans will just never happen. But they will do untold amounts of destruction to the planet, all the while as they are trying to push through the ones that do finally get built.

That’s why the AI bubble will collapse.

Interconnection requests are the wrong way to look at it. In every power pool interconnecti(n requests are always a large multiple of whatever actually eventually connects for many reasons but a big one is testing multiple locati)ns for a large load. Also 5gw in a 90gw peak load system is massive.

This random 3pm on a Texas Tuesday, Texas' demand is just over 60GW;

>>[Even] 5gw in a [60gw] peak load system is massive.

What you originally wrote is also true, but for normal operating conditions:

This would save Texians so much money by not having to use natural gas peakers (but the generators' owners, themselves, are making bank... so they ARE incentived to use nat.gas), and each facility makes BANK when the Texas grid is peaking at 80GW+ (e.g. 2021 winter storms, the costliest natural disaster in Texas' history, would have been entirely avoidable == buy electricity from the rest of America).

After the 2021 storm, the top-rate for a MWH was reduced -66% (but is still orders of magnitude more expensive than normal ERCOT operating compensations; the Texas power grid operators are incentivized to tax the grid maximally).

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