The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) gave the market another concrete reason to stop pretending the grid can absorb unlimited hyperscale load growth on top of an already strained generation mix. In a May 21st report, ERCOT disclosed that multiple clusters of proposed data centers and crypto facilities failed voltage ride-through testing. When subjected to simulated routine voltage disturbances, such as the kind caused by transmission faults, capacitor switching, or equipment issues, four groups of these large users simply disconnected. Models showed each group capable of removing more than 5,000 MW of demand in one event.“Those abrupt drops in demand were equivalent to the electricity consumption of a large city such as Boston”In a real-world fault on the Texas grid, those facilities would not ride through the sag and remain online like traditional industrial customers. Their protection systems would trip them offline to protect servers and mining rigs. Only Texas is aware of the power demand tsunami that is coming. The US is woefully unprepared for the coming explosion in electricity demand pic.twitter.com/9wfgBbS6D8
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 13, 2024The instantaneous loss of thousands of megawatts of demand creates an immediate generation surplus. Frequency rises sharply. Other units can trip on over-frequency protection or be forced into abnormal operation. In tight reserve conditions or during summer peak, the event does not stay localized. It becomes a system stress event.ERCOT has already recorded at least 26 such disconnection events involving data centers or crypto operations since 2023. The operator is now reviewing roughly 20 GW of large-customer applications, including several gigawatts slated to energize before July. The board has elevated voltage ride-through performance to a top priority precisely because the scale of these new loads makes the old assumptions obsolete.This is such a fascinating graph. A frequency drop of 0.15Hz was enough to take down Spain and Portugal. pic.twitter.com/tZ1OrITtMU
