Texas Data Center Power Procurement 2026: 75,089 MW Pipeline, 140 Projects, Behind the Meter Gas

Nearly half of the power plants under construction in Texas will provide power exclusively to data centers without grid connection. That statistic, reported by the Texas Tribune in June 2025, captures the structural shift underway in Texas power procurement. Data centers are not plugging into the grid and buying wholesale power. They are building their own gas plants, signing 20 year power purchase agreements for dedicated generation, and co locating behind the meter to bypass the ERCOT interconnection queue entirely.

Texas has 84 existing operating data centers producing 3,789 MW of IT load. The pipeline dwarfs the installed base: 140 planned projects would add 75,089 MW, and Texas already has 6.5 GW under construction, more than any other single market in North America. For vendors selling gas turbines, switchgear, transformers, cooling systems, electrical distribution, or construction services, every one of these projects represents a procurement event. The question is which projects are real, who is building them, and where the power procurement decisions are being made.

Named hyperscaler projects

The Stargate campus in Abilene, a joint venture between Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank, brought its first two buildings online in September 2025. Those initial structures span 980,000 square feet with over 200 MW of IT load. The full campus is designed for 1.2 GW across eight halls totaling approximately four million square feet. On site power includes 360 MW of gas turbines for backup, large battery storage, and a dedicated solar farm. Microsoft and Crusoe are expanding the Abilene footprint with two additional buildings and a 900 MW on site power plant, bringing the total campus capacity to 2.1 GW.

Microsoft is building in San Antonio with SAT93 and SAT94, each 245,000 square feet at $350 million per building, with construction running May 2025 through June 2027. A separate $1 billion investment covers one million square feet at the Texas Research Park campus on 158 acres. In the Permian Basin, Microsoft and Chevron signed an exclusivity deal for a co located data center and 2.5 GW gas plant, scalable to 5 GW, with a $7 billion investment. The project is behind the meter and potentially online by late 2027.

Meta expanded its El Paso investment from $1.5 billion to $10 billion, with a planned one GW capacity by 2028. The project broke ground in October 2025 and will support 300 permanent jobs with over 4,000 peak construction workers. El Paso Electric is building a $473 million, 366 MW gas plant using 813 modular generators to serve Meta, targeted for operation by 2027.

Google is building a fifth building at its Midlothian campus ($880 million, 288,000 square feet) with construction starting January 2026 and completion targeted for February 2027. In Wilbarger County, Google is co locating a data center with AES clean power under 20 year PPAs, part of a $40 billion Texas investment announced in November 2025. AWS filed to build a data center in DeSoto, Texas. Fermi America is developing an 11 GW AI campus in Amarillo across 5,800 acres and 18 million square feet, behind the meter, having acquired 600 MW of gas turbines and targeting one GW of AI power by 2026. Siemens Energy is supplying 1.1 GW of gas capacity for the Amarillo campus.

Behind the meter generation is the dominant model

The pattern across these projects is consistent: hyperscalers are not waiting for ERCOT to process interconnection requests. They are building dedicated gas plants co located with the data center, connected behind the meter, and operating outside the grid dispatch stack. This model eliminates exposure to wholesale price volatility, avoids the interconnection queue (which now contains 2,008 active requests totaling 453,562 MW), and gives the operator full control over reliability.

The behind the meter pipeline is substantial. ElectriGen LLC signed a letter of intent for 1.8 GW across two 900 MW gas plants, targeting 2028 commercial operation. The Microsoft and Chevron Permian Basin deal covers 2.5 GW scalable to 5 GW. BaRupOn holds permits for 60 MW scalable capacity in Liberty County with Kinder Morgan gas supply. Conduit and Prometheus are developing up to 300 MW per site using gas and battery, with the first site in 2026. Conduit separately partnered with Diamondback and Granite Ridge for 200 MW of distributed generation, with 250 MW of equipment targeted for 2027.

For vendors, behind the meter projects change the procurement path. The buyer is not a utility or an independent power producer with an established vendor list and a decades long supplier base. The buyer is a hyperscaler, a private equity backed developer, or a special purpose entity formed specifically for the project. Equipment procurement happens on the project's timeline, not on a grid operator's capacity auction schedule. Gas turbine vendors, EPC contractors, and balance of plant suppliers are selling directly to the project developer or to the EPC firm the developer selected.

ERCOT interconnection queue and large load policy

The ERCOT generation interconnection queue held 2,008 active requests totaling approximately 453,562 MW as of February 28, 2026. The breakdown by fuel type: storage at 177,642 MW, solar at 162,927 MW, wind at 47,793 MW, and gas at 60,715 MW. The large load queue separately contains 232,000 MW in process with approximately 140,000 MW in additional new requests not yet reflected, bringing the effective total to approximately 380,000 MW. That figure is nearly three times ERCOT's all time peak demand of 85,508 MW. The large load queue jumped approximately 300 percent in a single year.

The Public Utility Commission proposed rule 16 TAC Section 25.194 on March 12, 2026, establishing interconnection standards for loads of 75 MW and above. This rule implements SB 6, signed June 20, 2025. ERCOT is using a batch study process to group large load applications for efficiency. Separately, NPRR1308 and NOGRR282 establish frequency and voltage ride through requirements for Large Computational Loads. These regulatory frameworks are directly relevant to data center procurement decisions because they determine the timeline and cost of grid connected power versus the increasingly attractive behind the meter alternative.

Gas demand projections driven by data centers

US gas demand is expected to reach 150 Bcf/d by 2031, driven by LNG exports and data center power consumption. Data center specific gas demand is projected at 3 to 20 Bcf/d additional by 2030, with industry consensus at 4 to 8 Bcf/d. ERCOT's total power demand forecast reaches 278,003 MW by 2029, more than three times the all time peak. An April 2025 revision projects 35 GW of peak demand from data centers alone by 2035.

The midstream infrastructure build is tracking the data center load. Energy Transfer has inked or has tentative agreements for over one Bcf/d with data centers and power plants. The company took FID on the Hugh Brinson Pipeline, a 1.5 Bcf/d, 400 mile line running from Waha to south of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. Permian Basin electricity demand is expected to double from 10,500 MW in 2021 to approximately 24,000 MW by 2030, with data centers and upstream operations both contributing to the growth.

For vendors in the gas turbine, pipeline construction, compression, and gas processing segments, data center driven gas demand is creating parallel procurement pipelines. The existing power plant fleet requires maintenance and parts on OEM prescribed cycles. The new data center dedicated plants require greenfield EPC, commissioning, and initial service agreements. And the midstream infrastructure connecting gas supply to these facilities requires its own equipment and services. These are three distinct sales channels, each with its own buyer, timeline, and decision chain.

Co located power deals and PPAs

The power procurement structures across named projects reveal a mix of behind the meter generation, utility built dedicated plants, and long term PPAs.

The Microsoft and Chevron deal in the Permian Basin is a $7 billion behind the meter project with Engine No. 1 as financial partner, covering 2.5 GW scalable to 5 GW. El Paso Electric is building a 366 MW plant using 813 modular generators specifically to serve Meta, a utility built dedicated facility funded at $473 million. Google and AES signed 20 year co located PPAs in Wilbarger County. Vistra signed a 20 year nuclear PPA at Comanche Peak for 1,200 MW with delivery beginning late 2027, though the counterparty has not been publicly identified. The Stargate campus runs 360 MW of on site gas plus solar and battery. The Microsoft and Crusoe Abilene expansion adds a 900 MW on site plant.

Each of these structures represents a different procurement model for equipment and construction services. Behind the meter projects procure turbines, generators, and balance of plant through the project developer or EPC. Utility built dedicated plants procure through the utility's existing supply chain. PPA structures may not involve direct equipment procurement by the data center operator at all, but they do drive the utility or IPP to build or expand capacity, which triggers its own procurement cycle.

What this means for vendors

The Texas data center power market is not a single procurement pipeline. It is at least four parallel channels running simultaneously. First, greenfield behind the meter gas plants (the Microsoft Chevron 2.5 GW deal, ElectriGen 1.8 GW, Conduit and Prometheus distributed generation) require full EPC and equipment procurement on project developer timelines. Second, utility built dedicated plants (El Paso Electric 366 MW for Meta) follow utility procurement processes with established vendor lists. Third, grid connected ERCOT capacity additions driven partially by data center load follow the traditional IPP procurement path. Fourth, midstream gas infrastructure (Energy Transfer's Hugh Brinson Pipeline, Permian Basin gathering and processing) serves all of the above and procures separately.

The common thread across all four channels is gas. Behind the meter gas is the dominant model because it offers reliability, speed to deployment, and independence from a congested interconnection queue. For vendors selling turbines, generators, switchgear, transformers, cooling infrastructure, gas compression, or construction services, the Texas data center buildout is the largest single source of new procurement activity in the state.

Looking to map decision makers at Texas data center developers and power operators? See the full contact directory at ExecGraph.

Frequently asked questions

How much data center capacity is planned for Texas?

Texas has 84 existing operating data centers producing 3,789 MW. The pipeline includes 140 planned projects that would add 75,089 MW, and 6.5 GW is currently under construction, more than any other single market in North America.

What is behind the meter power generation for data centers?

Behind the meter generation means building a dedicated power plant co located with the data center, connected directly without grid interconnection. This model eliminates exposure to wholesale price volatility, avoids the ERCOT interconnection queue, and gives the operator full control over reliability. Nearly half of power plants under construction in Texas serve data centers exclusively through this model.

Which hyperscalers are building data centers in Texas?

Named projects include Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank at Stargate Abilene (1.2 GW campus, first buildings operational September 2025), Microsoft in San Antonio and the Permian Basin ($7 billion deal with Chevron for 2.5 GW), Meta in El Paso ($10 billion, 1 GW by 2028), Google in Midlothian and Wilbarger County ($40 billion Texas investment), AWS in DeSoto, and Fermi America in Amarillo (11 GW campus).

How large is the ERCOT interconnection queue?

As of February 28, 2026, the ERCOT generation interconnection queue contained 2,008 active requests totaling approximately 453,562 MW. The large load queue adds 232,000 MW in process with approximately 140,000 MW in additional pending requests, for an effective total of approximately 380,000 MW, nearly three times ERCOT's all time peak demand.