On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered a pause on all datacenter projects across Texas until Texas officials understand the impact the developments will have on Texas’ power grid and water resources. The pause ordered by Abbott does not affect El Paso’s controversial META datacenter because the El Paso Electric Company is not part of the Texas Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). ERCOT is a non-profit that manages the flow of electrical power for around 90% of the state’s electricity.
According to Abbott, there are currently requests for 474 gigawatts (GW) for ERCOT’s power for datacenters across Texas. Abbot says that he is ordering ERCOT to “conduct a comprehensive verification and audit of all data centers,” before “any additional data centers are approved.”
Abbott accused some data centers of failing to comply providing details to Texas regulators of how much water and power they will require.
The governor wants the data centers to provide “information detailing the extent to which data centers are paying their own way or depending on the state for financial assistance.” He added that he wants them to “include all state and local tax incentives, grants, abatements, or other public financial assistance received or expected to be received.”
Meta received tax abetments from local taxing entities to build their Northeast datacenter.
However, the governor’s directive does not impact two hyperscale datacenters being built around El Paso because the local utility is not part of ERCOT.
The El Paso Electric is part of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). The WECC is the largest electrical grid authority in America and oversees the western region of the country from México to Canada.
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Project Jupiter
In addition to the META datacenter, the WECC’s service area must also address the power requirements of Project Jupiter, the second hyperscale datacenter under development in the region. Project Jupiter is being built in Santa Theresa.
Project Jupiter was initially expected to begin operating this year but regulatory reviews have delayed the timeline.
Like the El Paso datacenter, Project Jupiter has raised fears about the stress it will put on the western electric grid. In July, the New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands blocked () a natural gas pipeline the datacenter developers want to build for the fuel cells they want to use for Project Jupiter. The Santa Theresa project also must secure an air quality permit from the New Mexico Environment Department for their fuel cells.
If the Project Jupiter developers are unable to secure the air permit or the pipeline permit, the developers may need to turn to El Paso Electric for their power requirements.
The hearing about Project Jupiter’s air quality permit is scheduled for October 19.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure executive vice president, Mahesh Thiagarajan, acknowledged last month that Oracle is talking to El Paso Electric about powering the Project Jupiter. Oracle joined the $165 billion project in September.
There are five planned 1GW datacenters (hyperscale) across the nation that are expected to come online later this year. The El Paso META datacenter, also a 1GW datacenter, is expected to go online in 2028.
For comparison, 1GW of electricity can power over 750,000 homes.
Project Jupiter is planned as a 2.5GW datacenter. There is currently no 2.5GW datacenter operating today.
Around 2 million homes would consume the 2.5GW of electricity that Project Jupiter will need to operate.
El Paso Electric has the capacity to generate around 2.8GW of electricity each day.
Two Datacenters Cannot Be Supported by El Paso Electric Alone
The META (1GW) and Project Jupiter (2.5GW) datacenters are planned to become operational by 2028. El Paso Electric would be required to buildout capacity to support both datacenters if they are unable to find alternative electric resources.
Whether El Paso Electric customers are required to pay for the new capacity remains unanswered.
El Paso Electric’s current grid capacity cannot support both datacenters if they reach their combined capacity of 3.5GW of load. The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona has a capacity of between 3 and 4GWs. Around 35% of El Paso Electric’s power comes from the Arizona nuclear power plant. Palo Verde does not have the capacity to support the datacenters being built in the west.
Both the META and Project Jupiter developers have said they are building local power generation capacity to power their datacenters. However, Project Jupiter is facing regulatory hurdles for its energy cells and public calls to stop the El Paso datacenter continues to rise in the city.
But even if both datacenter developers succeed in building out local capacity, the El Paso Electric will remain a significant component for both developments. Backup services, startup power, and transmission interconnection are some of the components that El Paso Electric must provide for the two developments.
Without their own power generating stations, the combined 3.5GW of power the two datacenters under development around El Paso will likely exceed the capability of the El Paso Electric’s ability to power them.