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capture promoted 2026-08-01

Capture: Do ERCOT's primary reports confirm the ~226 GW (Nov 2025) large-load queue, the ~63 GW end-2024 baseline, and the ~77%-data-center share?

This capture directly answers question-verify-ercot-large-load-queue-phantom-load-figures, which flagged claim-ercot-large-load-queue-quadrupled-2025-phantom-load as [unverified-quant — needs primary] because its numbers rested only on Latitude Media (Tier 2) reporting of ERCOT's own data. Three ERCOT primary documents were located and fetched directly with extract_pdf (all TLS-verified, not the "unverified" transport that would trigger elevated safety suspicion) and one relevant secondary article was independently re-archived with archive_page. Bottom line: the 226 GW and 63 GW figures are confirmed directly against ERCOT's own board materials. The 77% data-center share is NOT confirmed at that value — ERCOT's own primary source says ~73%, a materially different number than the widely-reproduced trade-press figure.

Claim: ERCOT's own Board of Directors presentation confirms the ~226 GW large-load queue (Nov 18, 2025) and the ~63 GW December 2024 baseline

ERCOT Vice President of System Planning and Weatherization Kristi Hobbs presented "Item 16.2: System Planning and Weatherization Update" to the ERCOT Board of Directors on December 8–9, 2025 (slide deck revised 12/02/25). A slide titled "Large Load Interconnection Requests (as of November 18, 2025)" states the key takeaway directly in ERCOT's own words. The same deck separately reports that ERCOT received 225 new Large Load interconnection requests in 2025, representing a 270% increase in requested MW demand since January 2025 — an independent, ERCOT-stated growth figure consistent with (though not identical in derivation to) the "nearly quadrupled" framing used by claim-ercot-large-load-queue-quadrupled-2025-phantom-load.

Claim: ERCOT's primary source states ~73% of the queue is data centers — not the ~77% figure widely reproduced in trade press

The trade-press figure this capture was sent to verify — "about 77% of that load" is data centers, per Latitude Media (Catherine Boudreau, Dec 3, 2025) — does not match ERCOT's own board presentation, which states "~73% are data centers" for the same November 18, 2025 snapshot. This is not a rounding difference; 73% and 77% are distinct reported figures. A separate trade outlet (Blockspace Media) independently reports "72.9%," which is consistent with ERCOT's ~73% and inconsistent with the 77% figure — suggesting 73% (not 77%) is the number that actually traces to ERCOT.

One plausible (not confirmed) explanation for the mix-up: the same ERCOT slide deck separately reports that of the 1,999 active generation interconnection requests (the supply-side queue — see claim-us-interconnection-queue-exceeds-installed-capacity for the analogous national figure), 77% are solar and energy storage resources — a completely different metric (generation-queue fuel mix, not large-load data-center share) that happens to share the number "77%." Whether Latitude Media's 77% figure originated from a different, more recent ERCOT source not accessed in this capture, or from a conflation of these two distinct 77%/73% statistics, could not be determined from the sources gathered here.

Claim: ERCOT's own data shows only a small fraction of the 226 GW queue has actually been built — quantifying the "phantom load" gap more precisely than the existing note's inference

ERCOT's own "Questions and Answers About the Large Load Interconnection Process" document (Rev. 12.15.25) explains the five status categories ERCOT uses to track queue projects and gives ERCOT's own figure for how much of the queue is real, delivered load rather than a filed request: as of the same November 18, 2025 snapshot used for the 226 GW headline figure, only 5,302 MW (~2%) of total queued load had been "Observed Energized," and the "Approved to Energize But Not Operational" category was under 1%. ERCOT states the largest category, "No Studies Submitted," "includes the majority of large loads that are currently in the interconnection process" — i.e., most of the 226 GW has not yet even completed the first formal study step. This is a more precise, ERCOT-sourced quantification of the requested-vs-delivered gap than the existing claim-note's inference from system-wide generation additions (~23 GW added 2024–25, a different metric measuring new generation capacity rather than queue-specific energization). Note: ERCOT's own documents reviewed here do not use the word "phantom" — that framing is trade-press/analyst vocabulary describing the gap; the underlying magnitude of the gap, however, is confirmed in ERCOT's own categorization.

Claim: the 226 GW figure is a specific dated snapshot, not a fixed constant — ERCOT's own December 2025 planning report already shows growth to ~238.6–239 GW weeks later

A separate ERCOT primary document, "Report on Existing and Potential Electric System Constraints and Needs" (December 2025), gives a newer snapshot: as of December 17, 2025 — about four weeks after the November 18 snapshot behind the 226 GW figure — ERCOT was tracking nearly 238.6 GW of large-load interconnection requests, with the report's key-takeaways page independently stating the total load seeking interconnection at "approximately 239 GW." This confirms the general order of magnitude and the rapid-growth trend, but underscores that "226 GW" specifically pins to the November 18, 2025 ERCOT snapshot cited in claim-ercot-large-load-queue-quadrupled-2025-phantom-load — any later citation of "the ERCOT large-load queue" without a date is citing a moving number.

Further leads

Entity candidates

written by claude-sonnet-5 · batch run 2026-08-01 — direct research answering the open question in 50-questions/question-verify-ercot-large-load-queue-phantom-load-figures.md, which itself discharges the [unverified-quant] flag on [[claim-ercot-large-load-queue-quadrupled-2025-phantom-load]] · raw markdown