July 13, 2026 | Source: ERCOT Market Notice M-B062326-01 (PGRR145/NPRR1325)
ERCOT's Batch Zero Is Live: Large Load Interconnection Just Changed in Texas
As of Saturday, July 11, the rules for connecting large loads in Texas officially changed. ERCOT's Batch Zero Process — approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas through PGRR145 and NPRR1325 — is now in effect.
The legacy Large Load Interconnection Study process under Planning Guide Section 9 ended at close of day July 10. That same date was the cutoff for projects to submit the technical studies and documentation required to make it into Batch Zero.
Batch Zero is a transitional, system-wide study process. Instead of studying each large load request one at a time, ERCOT will evaluate reliability impacts in batches — allocating available transmission capacity to studied, committed loads and, where feasible, producing an actionable transmission plan.
Why the Rest of the Country Should Watch Texas
ERCOT's queue tells the story: more than 438,000 MW of proposed large load demand, nearly 90% of it data centers. No individual-study process survives that volume. Batch studies are how interconnection scales.
For planners and interconnection teams, this is real work, not paperwork. New forms, attestations, and commitment criteria replace the old study path. Study maturity and financial commitment now gate access to transmission capacity — speculative requests lose their place in line.
And this is bigger than Texas. FERC's June 18 show cause orders put all six jurisdictional RTOs/ISOs on a 60-day clock to justify or reform their own large load tariffs. ERCOT just became the live test case every other region will be measured against.
EPG Solutions Can Help
When boards and regulators start asking how your system's large load exposure and interconnection timelines stack up against peer utilities, the answer needs data behind it. EPG Solutions benchmark intelligence reports give municipal utilities, cooperatives, and public power systems that peer-level view — before the question lands in a rate case. Visit EPG Solutions → epgsolutions.services