Only about 2% of ERCOT's 226 GW large-load queue had been 'Observed Energized' as of November 2025

ERCOT's own "Questions and Answers About the Large Load Interconnection Process" (Rev. 12.15.25) explains the five status categories ERCOT uses to track queue projects — from "No Studies Submitted" through "Approved to Energize" to "Observed Energized" — 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 behind the 226 GW headline, only 5,302 MW (~2%) of total queued load had been "Observed Energized." ERCOT states that the largest category, "No Studies Submitted," "includes the majority of large loads that are currently in the interconnection process" — most of the 226 GW has not yet completed even the first formal study step.

This is a more precise, ERCOT-sourced quantification of the requested-vs-delivered gap than the existing note's inference from system-wide generation additions (~23 GW added 2024–25 — a different metric measuring new generation capacity generally, not queue-specific energization). Notably, ERCOT's own documents do not use the word "phantom" — that framing is trade-press/analyst vocabulary describing the gap between filed and built. The underlying magnitude of the gap, however, is now confirmed directly in ERCOT's own categorization, even though "not yet energized" is not the same claim as "will never materialize" (speculative filing); ERCOT's Q&A does not quantify the latter.