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.
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."
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.
>>[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).