ERCOT ‘Kill Switch’ for Data Centers Passes in Texas House

Power grid officials would be able to shut off electricity to data centers in an emergency, under a bill tentatively passed Monday in the Texas House.

Senate Bill 6’s so-called “kill switch” provision, which would give the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) the power to shut off power to large consumers during power grid emergencies, has faced the most attention in a substantial legislative proposal designed to address issues facing the ERCOT power grid.

The bill passed 117-24. The Senate passed the bill on March 19, but will have another look at the language since it was changed in the House. The upper chamber can agree to those changes or call for a conference committee between the two chambers to iron out the differences. It would then head to the governor’s office.

The bill would also allow ERCOT, which oversees the Texas power grid, to make more accurate demand projections. In recent months, the power grid operator has projected massive increases in demand that officials at the agency have said are overblown.

Those have shown the power grid’s demand more than doubling in the coming years. Lawmakers have been tasked with creating legislation based on those projections, which has created some tension in the chamber as they work with data that they know is suspect.

Much of the bill was crafted with the ongoing proliferation of data centers in mind. Those warehouses of powerful computer servers can have the power consumption that rivals mid-sized Texas cities.

The bill would allow ERCOT to order data centers and other large consumers of electricity, such as factories or refineries, to curtail their operations if they have backup power sources. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, said the kill switch provision aims to encourage major electricity users to be able to fully run their operations on backup power during an electricity shortage.

ERCOT will develop the final rules for the kill switch. It will apply to facilities that consume at least 75 megawatts, which is roughly the amount of electricity consumed by 18,750 homes. Those large consumers would get notice of a possible shutdown or curtailment.

The bill also allows ERCOT to fast-track the connection of large consumers to the power grid, if those users agree to place backup power on site or to participate in a kill switch program.

To get more accurate demand projections, the ERCOT will require large users seeking to connect to the grid to provide more information about their proposed operation, including whether they have other sites in mind for their projects outside of the state. It will also require those businesses to make a $100,000 financial commitment before advancing in the ERCOT interconnection queue.

The idea is that taken together, both of those will help weed out proposed large-scale users that are speculative, or not serious about connecting in ERCOT.

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