Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to audit every data center project seeking a grid connection before approval. The order covers roughly 474 GW of pending connection requests — with about 90% of that demand coming from data centers. ERCOT has already paused its Batch Zero transmission-planning study in response.
The audit order
The directive targets a backlog that has ballooned as data center developers, including a wave of public Bitcoin miners pivoting to AI hosting, rushed to secure power. Only 28 of 377 companies responded to a PUCT survey about their data center plans, leaving regulators with a murky picture of who actually intends to build. Abbott wants that clarified before any more interconnection agreements move forward.
Public Bitcoin miners have spent the past year pitching investors on multi-gigawatt AI infrastructure pipelines. But those pipelines can bundle different assets — raw land, queue positions, or financed campuses — making it hard to tell which projects are real. The audit forces miners to show their cards.
Hut 8 has raised $7.5 billion in project-level financing for two sites, River Bend in Louisiana and Beacon Point in Texas, backing 949 MW of contracted IT capacity worth about $26.6 billion in expected base-term contract value. IREN already energized its 1.4 GW Sweetwater 1 site in Texas and has signed contracts with Microsoft and Nvidia for its Childress capacity — those are past the audit window.
But others are stuck in the ERCOT batch process. Cipher Digital has about 700 MW of contracted HPC capacity, but its Texas sites — McLennan, Colchis, Mikeska — remain subject to the ERCOT batch study that's now paused. CleanSpark has a contracted project in Georgia outside ERCOT's reach, but its Texas sites (285 MW near Houston and up to 600 MW near Brazoria County) depend on approvals and power availability not yet secured.
Who's exposed
MARA's operating fleet and behind-the-meter power strategy give it a base outside any single approval path. But its proposed 2 GW Matagorda project depends on regulatory approval, power authorization, and a signed tenant lease — three things the audit could delay.
Riot Platforms holds a 700 MW interconnection at Rockdale and an AMD lease starting at 25 MW (expandable to 200 MW). Its larger Corsicana plan, roughly 600 MW, is at an earlier stage and likely faces more scrutiny. Core Scientific operates about 300 MW of mining capacity at its Pecos campus, but its plan to expand to 1.5 GW rests on power and leases that don't yet exist.
ERCOT's Batch Zero pause means no new transmission studies for data center connections until the audit is complete. The PUCT hasn't set a deadline for the review. For miners with projects still in the queue, the timing isn't great — AI hosting contracts are competitive, and delays can push tenants to other states or to existing capacity already online.
