Reuters posted on X at 18:40 UTC on 4 November that Texas’ data center industry “has been plunged into uncertainty by governor-elect Gina Hinojosa’s pledge to crack down on the rapid growth of server-warehouse projects”. ERCOT’s own September board materials show the scale of what is waiting: about 194 GW of large loads conditionally kept in its Batch Zero study, 2.1 times the grid’s record peak demand of 91,134 MW, by our arithmetic.
Hinojosa’s campaign site says: “We need an immediate moratorium on data centers to last until the legislature can meet to put in place real protections”. AP called the Texas governor race for her at 04:17 UTC on 4 November, as we reported.
Business Pill · Grid Cost Allocation
A short Business Engineer explainer on how grid costs are allocated between customers. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Texas, Ohio or the elections.
ERCOT Batch Zero large loads conditionally included (194.3 GW, base plus studied) against the 91,134 MW record peak of 22 July 2026 and the 66.4 GW base load. Source: ERCOT Board materials, September 2026; the 2.1x ratio is our arithmetic. Chart: FourWeekMBA.
The key insight: As we read it, the Texas question is now about a queue, not a plant: ERCOT has 194.3 GW of large loads conditionally in Batch Zero, 2.1 times the 91,134 MW record peak by our arithmetic, and its energization of new data centers is already paused pending reports due 10 December.
Her Data Centers page says the aim is that Texans “can have a seat at the table to decide if and how data centers come into their communities”. It also says House Bill 2712, signed in 2015, gave hyperscale data centers “20-year tax breaks”.
Her affordability page ties power bills to the same issue. It says she “will direct the Public Utility Commission to freeze the rates residential customers pay until we have laws to ensure that data centers and other high-load users pay for themselves”.
The same page says she plans to ensure that “costs from rapid infrastructure development driven by data centers and industry are paid by the corporations and billionaires that drive those costs”, and that 765kV transmission lines should go through “proper notice and comment timelines”. Her victory remarks, posted by the campaign on 4 November, do not mention data centers.
ERCOT Batch Zero large loads (75 MW or more) against the grid’s record peak demand: 302.2 GW excluded (373 projects); 194.3 GW conditionally included as base or studied load (362 projects), of which 66.4 GW base load; record peak 91,134 MW on 22 July 2026, unofficial until final settlements. Source: ERCOT Board materials for the 14-15 September 2026 meeting (Item 14 Batch Zero Update; Item 13 CEO Update). The 194.3 GW sum and the 2.1x ratio are our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
Texas’ red-hot data center industry has been plunged into uncertainty by governor-elect Gina Hinojosa’s pledge to crack down on the rapid growth of server-warehouse projects.
With plenty of energy supplies, relatively cheap land and a pro-business environment, Texas has become one of the hottest regions for data center development in recent years โก๏ธ https://reut.rs/48wBPSr
Reuters posted at 18:40Z on 4 November that Texas’ data center industry has been plunged into uncertainty by governor-elect Gina Hinojosa’s pledge to crack down on the rapid growth of server-warehouse projects. This piece checks that against her campaign pages and ERCOT’s own queue figures.
Update, 5 Nov, 12:21Z: the legislature Hinojosa inherits.Yahoo Finance reported that Hinojosa “has pledged to impose a moratorium on data center construction in Texas, which accounts for more than 25% of planned US capacity by 2030.” It also reported that Abbott “announced a moratorium of his own” before the vote, and that Hinojosa called his proposals an “election year pause.”
The Texas Tribune reported that Democrats “seized control of the Texas House” and that “Republicans held onto the state Senate.” If results hold, Democrats “would enter the next legislative session in January with 83 seats to Republicans’ 67”, while the Senate line “appeared to hold firm at 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats.”
In the same Yahoo Finance report, Wolfe Research’s Tobin Marcus said Texas “is the one state with enough scale and enough difference between the candidates that it could make a real difference.”
The Queue ERCOT Is Studying
ERCOT’s Batch Zero update to its board, for the 14-15 September meeting, gives the conditional classification of every large load, meaning 75 MW or more. It says “204 projects (66.4 GW) met the qualifications to be conditionally included as base load” and “158 projects (127.9 GW) met the qualifications to be conditionally included as studied load”. A further 302.2 GW across 373 projects was excluded.
ERCOT’s CEO update to the same meeting puts the all-time peak at 91,134 MW, set on 22 July 2026 and marked “unofficial until final settlements occur”. The previous record was 85,508 MW in 2023.
By our arithmetic, the 194.3 GW kept in Batch Zero is 2.1 times that peak, and the base load alone, 66.4 GW, is 73% of it. These are interconnection requests, not plants: ERCOT says final inclusion or exclusion will be decided in December. A chart in the same deck labels the studied load 125.4 GW; on that figure the total is 191.8 GW, still 2.1 times the peak.
The largest county totals for base plus studied load in the deck are Cameron (12,235 MW), Dallas (7,637 MW), Jones (7,000 MW), Harris (6,899 MW) and Childress (6,750 MW).
What Texas Has Already Paused
The deck says that on 3 August Governor Greg Abbott directed the Commission and ERCOT to complete “a comprehensive verification and audit” of data centers in the interconnection process. ERCOT says it “has paused the energization of new Large Load data centers and crypto mining facilities until the completion of the verification and audit and community impact review”.
ERCOT says it will file its eligibility verification report and its community impact report with the Commission by 10 December 2026, 36 days after 4 November by our arithmetic. Abbott also directed the state’s environmental regulator to halt data center permits on 21 September, as we reported.
What SB 6 Already Requires
Texas’ Senate Bill 6, the large-load law the Legislature passed in 2025, already sets rules for large loads. It sets “a demand threshold of 75 megawatts unless the commission determines that a lower threshold is necessary” and a flat study fee “of at least $100,000” for initial transmission screening studies.
In an emergency, the law lets ERCOT direct a utility to require a large load customer “to either deploy the customer’s on-site backup generating facilities or curtail load”. It also tells the Public Utility Commission to amend its rules by 31 December 2026 so that wholesale transmission charges “appropriately assign costs for transmission investment”. The Senate passed it 31-0 and the House 103-25.
Ohio’s Version
Update, 4 Nov, 20:31Z: Meta and Piqua. Semafor reported that Meta will determine the future of its investment in a data center in Piqua, Ohio, according to a FirstSquawk post at 20:16 UTC relaying the headline. We have not found or read the Semafor article, so we do not report its details or any statement from Meta.
Piqua was one of 10 Ohio towns that passed data center bans on 3 November, the Enquirer reported, as we covered. In a separate special election, WYSO reported that unofficial Miami County Board of Elections results show more than 70% of voters chose to recall Mayor James Vetter and two other commissioners, who had been under fire for supporting a controversial data center.
Earlier on 4 November, Semafor wrote that residents in “more than 30 localities across nine states voted for moratoriums, outright bans, and other measures”.
In Ohio, where AP called the governor race for Amy Acton at 03:49 UTC, her campaign’s 27 July release backs a “conditional moratorium on data centers”. She said it would “ensure they cover one hundred percent of their utility costs, exclusively build with union labor, operate with full transparency, adhere to Ohio’s environmental standards, support the needs of local communities, and bring jobs to former industrial areas that have been left behind”.
Ohio already paused one incentive. Governor Mike DeWine said on 27 May he had directed the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to pause new data center tax exemption requests while a legislative committee studies the issue, adding that “it is not a data center ban”. His office said data centers previously granted sales and use tax benefits reported capital investment of $27.2 billion in 2025.
As we read the platform, Hinojosa’s two levers sit on different clocks: a moratorium she says should last until the legislature can meet, and a rate freeze she ties to laws that make high-load users pay for themselves.
As we read ERCOT’s deck, the 302.2 GW already excluded from Batch Zero is larger than the 194.3 GW kept in it, so most of the requested load had dropped out of this study before the election.
Gina Hinojosa campaign, Data Centers page
“We need an immediate moratorium on data centers to last until the legislature can meet to put in place real protections”
Three Implications
FOR DEVELOPERS IN TEXAS ERCOT says new large data centers will not be energized until its verification, audit and community impact review are complete, with reports due to the Commission by 10 December 2026.
FOR RATEPAYERS SB 6 already tells the Public Utility Commission to amend its rules by 31 December 2026 so wholesale transmission charges appropriately assign costs for transmission investment.
FOR OHIO Acton’s release lists six conditions by our count, including covering one hundred percent of utility costs, while DeWine’s May pause on new tax exemption requests is already in place.
The framework says: “The supercycle has a ceiling now, and the ceiling is political.”
As we read it, ERCOT’s queue gives that ceiling a size in Texas: 194.3 GW of requested large load waiting on a political and regulatory process, by our arithmetic. The framework predates the 2026 results and does not discuss Texas or Ohio.
Hinojosa is governor-elect, and the pages we read set out a platform, not a law. Whether a moratorium would come by executive order or by legislation, when, and which projects it would cover are not set out in the pages we read. ERCOT’s figures are from September and its classifications are conditional. We read Reuters’ X post, not the linked article. An unverified X claim about a delayed Ohio project is not reported here because we found no primary source naming it.
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Hinojosa’s platform calls for a data center moratorium until the legislature acts and a residential rate freeze until data centers “pay for themselves”. ERCOT’s September deck shows what that touches: 194.3 GW of large loads conditionally in Batch Zero, 2.1 times the 91,134 MW record peak by our arithmetic, with energization already paused under Abbott’s August directive.
A note on sourcing. Hinojosa’s and Acton’s positions are from their campaigns’ own pages, read on 4 November 2026. ERCOT figures are from its board materials for the 14-15 September 2026 meeting, the latest Batch Zero figures we found; they are conditional until ERCOT’s December determination. SB 6 provisions are from the enrolled bill text. Reuters is quoted from its X post; we did not read the linked article. AP call times and market figures come from our earlier pieces, linked. Sums and ratios are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
