Texas Set a September Power Record. ERCOT's Latest Report Shows How Fast the Grid Is Growing
ERCOT says September demand hit a preliminary record 86,647 MW, energy use jumped 14.6 percent from a year ago, and 453,782 MW of new generation is waiting to connect.
Summer is over, but the Texas power grid is still breaking records. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said in its monthly operational overview, released Friday, that demand hit a new September record of 86,647 megawatts on Sept. 12.
That is 6,698 megawatts more than the September 2025 peak of 79,949 megawatts. ERCOT notes the figure is preliminary.
A year of records
September capped a summer of new highs. In a mid-September update to its board, ERCOT said it had met 21 new demand records over the summer, counting all-time, monthly and weekend peaks. The grid set two new all-time peaks this year, topping out at 91,134 megawatts on July 22. The old record, set in 2023, was 85,508.
Energy use is climbing too, not just the peaks. ERCOT’s latest report says generation in September rose 14.6 percent from a year earlier, to 50,384 gigawatt-hours from 43,977. Year-to-date energy use through August was up 4.21 percent over 2025, according to the board update.
ERCOT explains on its peak demand records page that it counts only the integrated load for a full hour, not instantaneous readings, and that numbers can change slightly before final settlement several months later.
The line waiting to plug in
The supply side is racing to keep up. As of Sept. 30, ERCOT was tracking 1,874 active requests to connect new generation, totaling 453,782 megawatts, according to the report. That includes:
162,580 MW of battery storage
155,123 MW of solar
81,034 MW of natural gas
49,746 MW of wind
Not every project in that queue will be built, and 175 projects were listed as inactive, up from 168 in August.
On the wires, ERCOT was reviewing proposed transmission improvements with an estimated cost of $22.7 billion as of Sept. 30. Projects it has endorsed this year total about $12.4 billion.
Big new loads
ERCOT is also tracking how much new load is actually showing up. Its report says 9,456 megawatts of load have received approval to energize, and that the combined monthly peak use of those loads in September was 4,132 megawatts, a slight drop from August. ERCOT says that figure represents how much approved load it believes is now operational, or about 44 percent of what has been approved.
That matters for the debate over data centers. Gov. Greg Abbott has paused new state environmental permits for data centers while ERCOT audits proposed projects, and both U.S. Senate candidates have promised to make data centers pay their own way.
How the grid held up
By ERCOT’s own measures, September went smoothly. Its frequency control score was 186.51 percent for the month, well above its target of 140 percent, and it reported no exceedances of its key transmission reliability limits. The report says "frequency control has been performing extremely well."
ERCOT did flag one pricing problem. On Sept. 2, part of its network model did not update properly after a scheduled database load, and real-time prices for affected meters were calculated incorrectly until the fix at 1:22 p.m. ERCOT said it could not recreate the data needed to correct those prices.
What it means for your bill
Forward prices for power in coming years have trended upward over the past six months, the report says, though they are trading lower than they were a year ago.
A growing state needs a growing grid, and Texas is building one. The test is whether the families and small businesses who already depend on it keep paying fair prices while new industry plugs in. Keep an eye on the numbers, and on the people who make the rules.
