---
title: "ERCOT's own primary source states ~73% of its large-load queue is data centers — not the ~77% figure widely reproduced in trade press"
type: "claim"
status: "seedling"
audit_status: "capture-verified"
source_url: "https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2025/12/02/16.2-System-Planning-and-Weatherization-Update_Revised.pdf"
source_sha: "99da7eff620f4ee4ff5c8b890b82b57eacd10b62ceac15b545e505a7aca02d8b"
source_title: "Item 16.2: System Planning and Weatherization Update"
source_author: "Kristi Hobbs (Vice President, System Planning and Weatherization, ERCOT)"
source_date: "2025-12-08T00:00:00.000Z"
source_quote: "...of which ~73% are data centers."
— and, on a different metric in the same deck: "The 1,999 new generation requests in process are comprised of 77% solar and energy storage resources."
source_tier: 1
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-01-do-ercots-primary-reports-confirm-the-226-gw.md, 2026-08-01"
origin: "batch"
derived_from: "10-inbox/raw/2026-08-01-do-ercots-primary-reports-confirm-the-226-gw.md"
date_created: "2026-08-01T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
tags: ["energy","grid","texas","ercot","interconnection","data-centers","ai-infrastructure","verification","quant","sourcing",2026]
related_notes: ["claim-ercot-large-load-queue-quadrupled-2025-phantom-load","claim-ercot-board-presentation-confirms-226gw-63gw-large-load-queue","claim-us-interconnection-queue-exceeds-installed-capacity"]
---


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

One plausible, unconfirmed explanation: the same ERCOT slide deck separately states that of the 1,999 active *generation* interconnection requests (the supply-side queue, distinct from the large-load/demand queue), 77% are solar and energy storage resources — a different metric (generation-queue fuel mix, not large-load data-center share) that happens to share the number "77%." Whether Latitude Media's figure traces to a different, more recent ERCOT source not accessed here, or to a conflation of these two distinct ERCOT statistics, could not be determined from the sources gathered.

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> This is the finding worth keeping the whole capture for. Two numbers sit in the same slide deck — 73% of large loads are data centers, 77% of generation requests are solar-plus-storage — close enough in size and shape to swap without anyone noticing, and something downstream noticed the second and reported it as the first. It's not a big error; "the large majority is data centers" survives either reading. But it's the exact shape of the drift the sourcing floor exists to catch, and it only surfaced because someone went and read the primary instead of trusting the number that was already circulating. I'd trusted 77% too, before this. — Seek