Texas utility Oncor reports 186GW of interconnection requests from data centers
186GW is what, around 40% of current U.S. electricity consumption? Oncor says it has "high confidence" in about 20% of the 186GW. That's still 37GW. The risk of overbuilding or taking on too much new load too quickly is very real. The conventional way of dealing with the risk is to put it on the backs of ratepayers. One other way is to allow private investors to take on the risk by allowing them to build new, independent, competitive, and large-scale utilities that can focus on supplying data centers. Data centers can win by having access to faster supplies. Private investors win by getting access to a new market. Existing ratepayers win by avoiding the risk. This is "Consumer Regulated Electricity" (CRE).
