The test. More than a quarter of the count of ERCOT’s audit, which sorts the requests in Texas’s large-load queue into the real and the rest, found real puts the queue nearer a forecast than chapter 6 allows and weakens its claim, and says the constraint is physical and near, which supports chapter 14’s reading that construction is the binding clock. A quarter or less, a large cull, says the queue was option value, which confirms chapter 6’s claim and weakens chapter 14’s reading.
a mixed or partial reading The first cut of 3 September kept about 192 of about 494 gigawatts, about 39 percent, above the quarter line, which leans against chapter 6’s claim and toward chapter 14’s reading, but a first cut is not yet a survival rate.
From The AI Compute Race. Read the book
- Falls due
- Read on
- The survival rate due that day from ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, as a share of the audit’s own count in gigawatts
- Chapter
- Chapter 6 — Firm, Around-the-Clock
Where the electricity comes from: grid queues, transformers, turbines and the firm power a datacenter needs every hour of the year, on calendars the buildout does not control.
Filings that bear on it
- ERCOT, “Assessing the Grid,” presentation to the Texas Senate, 29 July 2026
ERCOT told a Texas Senate committee on 29 July 2026 that it tracks about 474 gigawatts of large loads seeking connection, about 90 percent of them data centers, and about 205 gigawatts are eligible for its Batch Zero study.
- ERCOT, “Batch Zero Update,” Board of Directors item 14 for the meeting of 14–15 September 2026, posted 11 September 2026
ERCOT’s board update of 14 and 15 September 2026 classified 204 projects (66.4 gigawatts) conditionally as base load and 158 as studied load, excluded 302.2 gigawatts, and paused new data center energizations pending reports due 10 December.
- ERCOT market notices of 3 and 21 August 2026
ERCOT’s notice of 3 August 2026 says Governor Abbott directed it to verify data center large loads before advancing them, so it would not give their Batch Zero classifications by 7 August.
- ERCOT, “PUCT Approves ERCOT’s Batch Zero Process for Connecting Large Electricity Users While Protecting System Reliability for Texans,” news release, 18 June 2026
ERCOT announced on 18 June 2026 the state commission’s approval of its Batch Zero process, studying qualified large loads of 75 megawatts or more together, while tracking more than 438,000 megawatts of requests, nearly 89 percent from data centers.
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How to cite this page
Dryburgh, Lee S. “Chapter 6, the queue is not a forecast; chapter 14, construction is the binding clock.” In The AI Compute Race. DRYBURGH. https://dryburgh.com/vol1/tests/2026-4 (accessed 2026-11-01).
BibTeX
@misc{dryburgh-chapter-6-the-queue-is-not-a-forecast-ch-2026,
author = {Dryburgh, Lee S.},
title = {{Chapter 6, the queue is not a forecast; chapter 14, construction is the binding clock}},
howpublished = {In \emph{The AI Compute Race}, DRYBURGH},
year = {2026},
url = {https://dryburgh.com/vol1/tests/2026-4},
note = {Accessed 2026-11-01}
}