Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said last week that the state's energy demand could reach nearly 368 gigawatts by 2032 — enough energy to power more than 73 million homes on a hot summer day or cold winter morning.
That projected energy demand is more than four times the state's record.
ERCOT began using a new process this year to forecast energy demand, using responses from utility companies to predict medium and large energy users, such as data centers, looking to join the Texas power grid.
As a result, its forecast is likely an overestimate, grid operators told the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) late last week. ERCOT is now looking to revise its long-term energy demand forecast.
"I think it's clear we need to engage in the process to look at ways to refine this number to something that's more usable," PUCT Chairman Thomas Gleeson said during a commission meeting Friday.
University of Houston Energy Fellow Ed Hirs said although the forecast numbers likely aren't accurate, they show that ERCOT wants to prepare for an increase in demand from data centers.
"Really, what ERCOT is doing by publishing this forecast is signaling that there is a huge amount of investment that needs to be made to operate the grid," he said in an interview.
Patricia Zavala, the executive director of the nonprofit PowerHouse Texas, said it's better to think of the recently released forecast as a benchmark of the state's maximum potential energy demand, rather than the most likely scenario.
"It's not a firm prediction," Zavala said in an interview withHouston Public Media."It's more of a high-end planning scenario, that's based off of a large number of proposed projects, many of which may never actually materialize. This potential quadrupling of demand should be treated with caution."
While the state's growth is positive, Zavala said, it's important to make sure that data centers and other large energy users don't pass off their electricity costs to consumers.
"As these large new users like data centers connect to the grid, we need to make sure that they're contributing to the cost of the infrastructure that they require and not shifting those costs to everyday Texans, especially for lower-income households or households that are on a fixed income," she said.
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