Texas PUC Approves ERCOT's Ride-Through Rule for Data Centers and Crypto Mines: Stay Online Through a Fault or Face Disconnection

“By analogy, whenever an illegally parked car gets towed, there is usually a person negatively impacted.” That sentence, from a Public Utility Commission of Texas staff memo dated July 2, was the answer to the argument that ERCOT cannot regulate a data center ^[2]. On July 9 the five commissioners signed an order approving ERCOT’s Nodal Operating Guide Revision Request 282 and its companion, NPRR1308 ^[1]. Starting Aug. 1, data centers and crypto mines of 75 MW or more on the ERCOT grid must ride through frequency and voltage disturbances, and ERCOT can order one off the system if a failure poses an imminent risk ^[3,4].

What the commission approved

Both revision requests sat in a batch of 21 in Project No. 54445, the docket where the Commission reviews ERCOT rule changes ^[1]. The order approves each with its market impact statement and adds no conditions ^[1]. E&E News and Utility Dive both reported the vote as unanimous ^[9,10].

NPRR1308 creates the class. A Large Computational Load is “A Large Load in which 50% or greater of the Demand at the site consists of power electronic based load, specifically computational load, such as data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities” ^[4]. A Large Load is a site with an aggregate peak demand of 75 MW or more behind common points of interconnection ^[4]. The term began as “Large Electronic Load” and was renamed in April to avoid a clash with an existing acronym ^[3,4].

NOGRR282 adds two sections to the Nodal Operating Guide ^[3]:

• Frequency (Section 2.6.4). Ride through 58.8 to 61.2 Hz continuously, and for 299 seconds in the bands from 57.5 to 58.8 Hz and from 61.2 to 63.0 Hz ^[3]. A load may use an internal transfer scheme but must be back to 90% of its prior draw within two seconds ^[3].
• Voltage (Section 2.15). Ride through 0.90 to 1.10 per unit continuously; 2.0 seconds from 0.80 to 0.90; 0.5 seconds from 0.50 to 0.80; 0.25 seconds from 0.35 to 0.50; and 0.15 seconds below 0.35 ^[3]. Cooling and mechanical load may trip below 0.35 per unit ^[3].

The deep-sag rule has two tiers. Loads that complete their interconnection agreements after Nov. 14, 2025, and on or before Jan. 1, 2028, may cut consumption in proportion to the voltage drop “if capable,” or as much as needed to stay connected ^[3]. After Jan. 1, 2028, a new load must keep drawing power between 0.8 and 0.5 per unit ^[3].

Who is covered, and what a failure costs

The line is drawn at Nov. 14, 2025, the day ERCOT posted the request ^[3,6]. A load that was running, or had ERCOT’s written approval to energize, by then is exempt ^[3]. So is one whose interconnection agreements were signed, construction notice given, funding posted and study approved by that date ^[3]. A second route covers loads that never needed the interim study: the transmission utility attests before Dec. 31, 2026, that the load will energize between Nov. 14, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2026, ERCOT approves it, and the load actually energizes by year-end ^[3]. A modification large enough to trigger a new study ends the exemption ^[3].

Nothing in the rule is a fine. After a failed ride-through, the customer has 90 days to report a root cause, 90 more to submit a plan and 180 to carry it out, unless ERCOT allows longer ^[3]. The sharper tool is disconnection: if ERCOT decides that continued operation “poses an imminent risk to local or system reliability,” the load stays off until it satisfies ERCOT that it can comply ^[3].

The compliance cost falls on the customer. ERCOT’s own impact analysis estimates $600,000 to $750,000 a year in staffing to administer the rule and requires no system project ^[3]. What a mine or data center spends is not in any approved document. The Texas Blockchain Council puts dedicated battery storage, the most-cited fix, at more than $300,000 per MW and as much as $1.6 million per MW ^[7]. A member’s bench tests on mining hardware showed about 0.027 seconds of ride-through in the 0.50 to 0.80 band, against the 0.5 seconds required ^[7].

Why ERCOT says it needs this

ERCOT counts 28 events since the start of 2023 in which computational loads of at least 100 MW tripped during voltage or frequency excursions ^[5]. Its studies found cascading-outage risk once trip-prone computational load in an area exceeds 3,200 MW ^[5]. Developers have asked ERCOT to study more than 438 GW of Large Load projects, most of them computational ^[5]. Those are study requests, not projects.

ERCOT also looked at building its way out. Its studies concluded that “for most events, transmission improvements will not be an effective option” to cut the load-loss risk ^[5].

Where the sides stand

The Data Center Coalition does not oppose ride-through standards but said ERCOT “has not furnished any evidence that data centers have contributed to loss of load or other reliability events following frequency or voltage disturbances in Texas” ^[6]. Using a chart ERCOT showed at a NERC conference in February, the coalition pointed out that the listed events involved crypto facilities, oil and gas sites and single industrial loads ^[6]. It asked the Commission to write the standards through a rulemaking enforced by utility tariffs, and failing that to exempt loads energized before Dec. 31, 2027 ^[6]. The approved rule keeps the Nov. 14, 2025, line ^[3]. E&E News reported that the coalition maintained after the vote that the Commission, not ERCOT, should have set the requirements ^[9].

The Texas Blockchain Council said loads can already meet the frequency rules and the voltage rules above 0.80 per unit, and that the gap is in deep sags ^[7]. It wanted ERCOT to build system strength first through an ancillary services market for inertia and reactive power. “That is like requiring drivers to survive potholes instead of repairing the road,” it wrote ^[7].

Texas Industrial Energy Consumers said the rule does not seem aimed at its manufacturing members but called direct ERCOT compliance for retail customers “novel and, frankly, dangerous” ^[8]. Its legal argument was that PURA § 39.151(j), which lists the entity types bound by ERCOT rules, leaves out retail customers ^[8]. Two industrial consumers, Air Liquide and CMC Steel, cast the only no votes at ERCOT’s Technical Advisory Committee ^[3].

Commission staff answered that “delegated authority is sufficient” ^[2]. It rooted ERCOT’s power in PURA § 39.151(d) and the Commission’s delegation in 16 TAC § 25.361(b), and read § 39.151(j) as a duty on the listed entities rather than a limit on everyone else ^[2]. “There is no debate that voltage and frequency excursions on the transmission network create reliability concerns,” it wrote ^[2]. The rule disconnects the load, staff said, not the customer ^[2].

What I’m watching

Aug. 1 and the Dec. 31 attestation window. The rules take effect in 17 days by this column’s count, and transmission utilities have until year-end to attest for loads that never entered the interim study process ^[3]. How many sites use that route is not in the record.

A second ride-through rule, and a possible lawsuit. ERCOT says it has found ride-through risks from other Large Loads and intends to file a separate request, with requirements that could differ by technology ^[3]. Opponents raised the possibility of a court challenge after the vote, E&E News reported ^[9]. Texas Industrial Energy Consumers filed a motion to intervene in the project before the vote ^[3].