ERCOT’s current rulemaking process will shape the Texas grid for decades, driving infrastructure investments that last 30 to 50 years and cost billions of dollars.

During this year’s SXSW Texas Future’s Summit in Austin, ERCOT Chief Executive Pablo Vegas sat down with Energy Capital Podcast hosts Josh Rhodes and Matt Boms to explain the grid operator’s approach.

ERCOT has added more than 60 gigawatts of new supply since the devastating Winter Storm Uri blackouts in 2021, and battery storage resources have grown from a few hundred megawatts to more than 16 gigawatts. Vegas said the grid is more reliable today than it was three years ago. The challenge now is to plan for what’s coming. Last month, ERCOT announced that load interconnection requests now exceed 410 gigawatts. For comparison, existing load has peaked at around 85 gigawatts in recent years. New data centers drive much of that growth.

In this episode, Vegas described how ERCOT determines which projects in the interconnection pipeline are likely to be built. Even a fraction of those projects could reshape the system, especially if data centers arrive in the concentrations that some projections suggest.

Vegas also walked through ERCOT’s proposed batch study process for reviewing large load interconnection requests, and why the current one-review-at-a-time approach is inadequate given growing load projectionsAnd he discussed residential demand response — and why it may be a faster path to reliability than building new generation or transmission.

The ERCOT grid is growing like never before — yet demand is growing even faster. ERCOT’s response to this challenge will shape our grid and our economy for generations. Check out this week’s episode to learn more about what that response will look like.

Energy Capital Podcast is produced by ClarityForge Studios.

Timestamps

* 00:00 - Introduction and Pablo Vegas

* 03:40 - Lessons from Winter Storm Uri

* 05:42 - How 60 GW of New Supply Changed the Grid

* 09:18 - Filtering the 230 GW Load Forecast

* 13:28 - Why Data Center Load Broke the Old Process

* 19:15 - How ERCOT’s Batch Study Process Works

* 22:02 - DERs and the Distribution Grid

* 26:57 - Real-Time Co-optimization and RTC+B

* 30:11 - Battery Duration vs. Flexibility

* 33:26 - Residential Demand Response

* 36:41 - How ERCOT Is Using AI

* 40:35 - What Texas Should Learn and Export

Resources

People & Organizations

* Pablo Vegas (LinkedIn)

* ERCOT (Website)

* Joshua Rhodes (LinkedIn)

* Webber Energy Group (Website - LinkedIn)

* IdeaSmiths (Website - LinkedIn)

* Matt Boms (LinkedIn)

* Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (Website - LinkedIn)

* Energy Capital (Website - LinkedIn - YouTube)

Company & Industry News

* ERCOT Goes Live with Real-Time Co-optimization Plus Batteries

* RTC Deployed, ERCOT Takes on New Challenges in 2026

* New Batch Study Framework for Large Load Interconnections

* Texas Task Force Aims to Tear Down Barriers to Virtual Power Plant Pilot

Programs & Processes Discussed

* ERCOT Large Load Integration

* ERCOT Large Load Working Group

* Real-Time Co-optimization Plus Batteries Task Force

* Aggregate Distributed Energy Resource Pilot Project

Related Podcasts by Energy Capital

* Who Pays for Texas Grid Growth? Roundtable Discussion

* Is Texas Ready for Winter Now? with Will McAdams

* Flexibility Driving Reliability and Affordability with Matt Boms

Transcript

Joshua Rhodes (01:37.714)

the most in the first few years leading our cup?

Pablo Vegas (01:40.878)

I guess what’s been really interesting learning is, and when you work in the utilities space, and I worked in the utility space in Arcox, back in Albuquerque, Texas, but I’ve worked in the utility space, as you said, for quite a while, for over about 20 years.

Pablo Vegas (01:56.908)

I was surprised how different grid operations is from what it looks like inside of the utility. So the issues that the grid operator deals with in contrast to what a utility company deals with is pretty stark. And while there’s a lot of kind of overlap on elements of it, of course, but kind of the focus of what we’re looking at, which is, you know, looking at all of the issues across all the different components and players in the system, it’s a lot more complex trying to consider all of the

Pablo Vegas (02:26.67)

needs of the different stakeholders that are part of the process. When you’re a utility company, you’re always laser focused on your customers, you know, directly, and you’re serving them and you’re making sure that you are working constructively with, you know, your regulators and policymakers to serve your customers. At the grid operator level, the customers are still a very critical part of the conversation, but you’re doing that through one layer removed in helping to oversee the processes.

Pablo Vegas (02:52.354)

that govern the utilities and the power producers and the retail electric providers and the brokers and traders, the large industrials and the small consumer, everything in between. And so you’re really thinking about kind of the policy making that affects each one of those segments in a different way. And that’s what surprised me a little bit in terms of just how complex that can be, how in many cases, how political it can be. We have a very unique environment in Texas where, you know, we govern, legislate all the policy for what happens in the wholesale power markets.

Pablo Vegas (03:21.624)

which is different than what happens in other states. And that’s something that adds to the complexity inside of Texas, but it also gives us benefits, gives us the agility, the ability to make change. And we’re seeing that realized today at the pace of change that’s happening.

Matt Boms (03:34.9)

And I think you came in at such an interesting time

Matt Boms (03:37.373)

after Winter Storm, Yuri. We just had the five year anniversary of Yuri recently. Do you still feel like that’s hanging over our heads or do you feel like we’re now entering this new chapter? We’re going to talk about low growth and data centers and all that. But you came into the job during that kind tumultuous period. Do you feel like that’s behind us now or do you still feel kind of the shadow of Winter Storm, Yuri hanging over us?

Pablo Vegas (03:58.754)

Bye.

Pablo Vegas (03:59.48)

firmly believe that the memory of Yuri is going to remain with those who experienced it for years and years to come. I don’t think it’s something that is gonna be forgotten and put into the past and nor should it because it has taught us lessons across so many different facets of the work that we do, the importance of great communications. That’s something that was, I think, a very early lesson learned in the process that there needs to be so much better transparency

Pablo Vegas (04:29.424)

in terms of the role that our cop plays, what we do and how we do it, why we do it, who we work with in delivering the general service that everybody experiences. It was clear that it was not well understood as we went through the whole URI e...