Large Load Trends

Texas’s pro-business climate has encouraged significant load growth in oil and gas, crypto-mining, and heavy industry. Recently, hydrogen production and artificial intelligence (AI) data centers have started to proliferate as well. In House Bill 5066, the Texas State Legislature directed regional grid planning to include more of the prospective load additions reported to area transmission providers. This led the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to report a huge demand forecast increase (over 150 GW) in its six-year growth outlook, suggesting extensive transmission and generation resources must be constructed within relatively short timeframes. The Texas Legislature recently passed Senate Bill 6, which addresses expectations for the loads themselves regarding their commitment and responsibility.

Transmission providers have since reported even more potential load growth, as much as 218 gigawatts (GW) by 2031. ERCOT refined its load forecasting and adjusted this to 145 GW by 2031—still a huge increase. Other technical issues are under discussion besides serving these energy and delivery needs, such as ride-through performance of large loads during disturbances. ERCOT’s Large Load Working Group discusses the challenges of integrating these loads, especially crypto mines and AI data centers. Their efforts contributed to recent Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) approval of NPRR1234 (Interconnection Requirements for Large Loads and Modeling Standards) and PGRR115 (Large Load interconnection process, which replaces an interim process). 

Outside of Texas, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) reported on a ride-through performance issue involving data centers in Virginia. NERC also established its Large Load Task Force, reporting to the NERC Reliability and Security Technical Committee (RSTC), to further examine reliability concerns with large loads. Their workplan calls for a second quarter release of a whitepaper: Characteristics and Risks of Emerging Large Loads. It aims to identify, validate, and prioritize potential reliability risks related to the integration of emerging large loads. The group’s efforts target six broad areas: 

• Forecasts that better predict future load growth, behavior, and impact on Resource Adequacy
• Development of interconnection processes to account for demand flexibility and on-site generation
• Modeling dynamic performance to capture how new load types operate and respond to system conditions
• Identification of tools and processes needed for situational awareness to account for large load characteristics
• Incentivizing and leveraging demand response to benefit reliability
• Operational risks from voltage ride-through behavior and large oscillations, both encountered in real-time operations

More information on the NERC Large Loads Task Force is available here.