Abbott's August 3 order pauses data-center advancement across ERCOT's 474 GW queue

On August 3, 2026, Governor Greg Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT to audit every data center advancing through ERCOT’s interconnection process before any more are cleared to move forward. The order says projects that fail the review must be denied connection to the Texas grid. ERCOT is tracking about 474 GW of large loads seeking interconnection, ~90% of them data centers. Within a day the directive knocked ERCOT’s Batch Zero classification schedule off its August 7 deadline.

• L&T deploys 10,000-GPU AI Factory at Chennai – Larsen & Toubro’s Vyoma.AI, through LTN Compute, will host a 10,000 NVIDIA B300 GPU cluster at its Chennai campus for US cloud firm Together AI.
• RWE and Google sign 155 MWac Oklahoma solar PPA – RWE will sell the full output of Crooked Creek Solar in McCurtain County to Google under a 15-year deal to serve Google’s operations in the SPP market.
• ERCOT halts Batch Zero classifications – ERCOT’s August 3 market notice said it would not issue Batch Zero classification notices by August 7 and would seek a good-cause exception at the PUCT’s August 20 open meeting.
• Chennai anchors L&T’s India AI capacity – L&T describes the Chennai site as gigawatt-scale, with Phase 1 designed for 250 MW and 150 MVA of power readiness.
• Crooked Creek COD dates diverge across filings – SPP’s interconnection agreement lists a planned December 31, 2027 commercial operation date; RWE’s August announcement says 2028.
• CenterPoint submitted 17+ GW into ERCOT’s Batch Zero – CenterPoint Energy disclosed more than 17 GW of large-load projects moving through the ERCOT process now subject to Abbott’s audit.