Why The Texas Power Grid Needed Gov. Abbott To Pause The Data Center Boom

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    "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2026/08/06/why-the-texas-power-grid-needed-gov-abbott-to-pause-the-data-center-boom/",
    "title": "Why The Texas Power Grid Needed Gov. Abbott To Pause The Data Center Boom",
    "assets": "gas turbines",
    "author": "Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff",
    "excerpt": "By Christopher Helman , Senior Editor. Only “behind the meter” projects like a new Chevron-Microsoft data center are likely to avoid uncertain delays from Abbott’s audit order. Texas in recent years has gone out of its way to be the friendliest state for data centers. Drawn by property tax breaks, sales tax exemptions and green energy from enormous new solar farms and battery installations, the AI hyperscalers have splurged tens of billions on Texas datacenters like Oracle’s Stargate project in Abilene and Galaxy Digital’s Helios campus in west Texas. Google is in the midst of dropping more than $40 billion in Ellis County south of Dallas. Hyperscale computing in Texas now uses about 12 gigawatts of power. That's roughly 15% of the electrons coursing through the grid managed by the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which in turn manages about 90% of the state’s electric load. That 15% is more than enough to power all of New York City on most days. All this new data center demand has contributed to a surge in Texas residential power prices of 25% over the past five years. ERCOT too is struggling to absorb accelerating datacenter demands. Texas now has the fattest pipeline of data centers projects, which if they all got built would require an additional 93 gigawatts of power, according to Bernstein Research. That’s a mighty chunk of the 450 GW in potential demand...",
    "summary": "Chevron is building gas turbines at its Kilby data center in the Permian Basin at an estimated cost of over $6 billion to generate nearly 3 GW of power for Microsoft.",
    "location": "Permian Basin, Texas, USA",
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    "published_at": "2026-08-06T11:00:00Z",
    "location_data": [
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        "state": "Texas",
        "region": "Northern America",
        "country": "United States",
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    "article_sentence": "Microsoft last month signed a 20-year contract to buy Kilby’s off-grid energy from Chevron, which is building enough gas turbines (at an estimated cost of more than $6 billion) to generate nearly 3 GW for Microsoft.",
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