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🇺🇸 ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW) · PGIQ Tier 2 Strong
As of June 2026 · powergridiq.com/rating/ercot-central
PGIQ Rating v2 (reliability-adjusted) · as of June 2026
2

🇺🇸 ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW)

Strong, with known trade-offs, and the path is improving Reliability flags found
Tier 2 Strong · Composite 70/100, #4 of 79 markets (fundamentals 78 minus a reliability dock) · Outlook Positive · High confidence · how we score

The deliverable half of Texas: the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth load pockets sit close to generation on a robust transmission network, so power actually reaches the site. It costs more than the wind-rich west, but it is where the large data-center corridors are and where a firm 24/7 load should look first.

See live grid data →
One market,
four reads
BuildTier 2Siting ratingSellGrade AOfftakePlanHeavyLoad pressureMonitorSoundGrid strength
The same market, four decisions. Open any lens to see this market ranked against the rest.
Time to energize · file to power
~24 mo
File a large load today, powered ~2028. Typical range 17 to 31 months, modelled.
Application & screening 6mo · Interconnection study & agreement 6mo · Construction & energization 12mo
End-to-end wait for a large new load, from an unstated start to an unstated end. Earlier milestones (initial, phased, temporary or conditional energization) are reported separately. A typical case, not a firm quote. · Source: ERCOT interconnection process · Compare markets →
The same market, read four ways

ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW) is a strong market to sell power into

Grade A (Strong)
Offtake score 100/100
Demand 48, build feasibility 91, combined into the score. For a seller: where buyers already pay, how tight supply is, and how feasible new build is here.
Price to beat
A 100 MW load on our standard case pays about $72/MWh delivered here. A competitive supply offer works against that level.
Connection
Connection difficulty Low, typical wait 1-2 years.
For new supply
The same fast energy-only build path, applied where transmission is robust and the load pockets are well served.
Regulatory momentum
Favourable, stable. The same open, energy-only connect-and-manage (connect first, ease congestion later) framework as ERCOT statewide, applied where the transmission is robust and the load pockets are well served.
Beyond the grid
Water and community consent bind in Central Texas: the San Antonio to Austin corridor quadrupled data-centre development from 2023 to 2025 as Edwards Aquifer levels hit historic lows, Hays County advocates are protesting five proposed sites, and San Marcos City Council voted a data centre down outright.
See it on the Offtake Grade →

ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW): some room at system level, heavy demand pressure

Some room 57/100
System-level room, not local capacity
Local capacity: not assessed. We have found no operator publication of area or substation capacity for this market, so whether the bus serving a candidate site can take the load is an open question. Absence of a finding here is not evidence that capacity exists.
Two reads for a grid planner: how much room the system as a whole looks to have (Some room), and how hard demand is already pushing (Heavy). The first is a market-level estimate from connection ease, forward adequacy and reliability margin. It is not local deliverability. Capacity at a specific substation is not assessed for this market, and a market can look roomy while the bus you want has nothing available. Confirm local capacity with the utility before relying on it.
Large-load queue
About 445 GW of large-load requests as of April 2026, roughly 77% data centres. ERCOT-wide, not specific to this zone. A request pipeline, not approved load.
Demand growth
Fast load growth in our read, the pull on your system.
Future firm supply
Future firm supply: tight for a large new load.
Load Pipeline Reality → Where demand is hungry → Connection friction →

Grid Risk Annex BETA

Sound
Manageable with normal diligence · grid strength 67/100
A cited, dated grid-risk read on ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW) for a capital provider, the banks and private-credit lenders, infrastructure funds and insurers holding or underwriting a power or data-centre exposure here. Drop it into a credit memo and watch each factor over the life of the exposure.
Read it against your asset. For a load asset (Buy), weight connection access and energization timing. For a generation or offtake asset (Sell), weight offtake demand, curtailment (when a plant is told to stop feeding the grid) and cost realisation. For a grid or transmission asset (Move), weight load-pipeline reality and buildout risk.
Rating and track record
PGIQ Tier 2 Strong, outlook Positive, High confidence. Scored on a public, dated, falsifiable record you can cite in a credit memo.
Delivery reliability
Reliability flags found in the bulk and local outage record we reviewed.
Future firm supply
Future firm supply: tight.
Cost certainty
Recurring cost about $72/MWh (band $55 to $95) for the standard 100 MW case, basis triangulated. Excludes connection capital.
Regulatory / stroke-of-pen
Favourable, stable. The same open, energy-only connect-and-manage framework as ERCOT statewide, applied where the transmission is robust and the load pockets are well served.
Execution risk
Connection friction Low, the risk the project or load actually energizes on time.
Ongoing monitor
Track this market's rating actions and the Global Power Index as a covenant-style monitor over the life of the exposure.
Monitoring plan
Covenant-style triggers to watch over the life of the exposure: a change in the PGIQ rating or outlook; a dated regulatory move (stroke-of-pen risk); a capacity-auction or cost-band shift; a forward firm-supply adequacy warning; and a rise in queue drop-out or connection friction. Track them on this market page and the Global Power Index, or as Analyst Desk alerts.
Sources: ERCOT 2024 load-zone prices, Houston and North low congestion (Modo Energy) · Texas data centers drive demand (EIA) · KUT · TPR
This is a directional grid-risk screen, not a credit rating, and not investment, engineering or procurement advice.
The formatted, cited Grid Risk Annex export is an Analyst Desk feature.See the Grid Exposure Monitor →
Sub-region rating. Part of the ERCOT (Texas) national overview.

Regulatory momentum

The regulatory and permitting environment is increasingly the binding variable for a new large load.
Favourable→ stable

Why: The same open, energy-only connect-and-manage framework as ERCOT statewide, applied where the transmission is robust and the load pockets are well served.

What would change the read: Restrictive new large-load interconnection rules following a major reliability event.

For new supply: The same fast energy-only build path, applied where transmission is robust and the load pockets are well served.

Beyond the grid: Water and community consent bind in Central Texas: the San Antonio to Austin corridor quadrupled data-centre development from 2023 to 2025 as Edwards Aquifer levels hit historic lows, Hays County advocates are protesting five proposed sites, and San Marcos City Council voted a data centre down outright. KUT TPR

The five pillars behind the tier

A
A
C
M
C
The pillar signature: Access, Availability, Cost, Momentum, Carbon, taller is stronger. The same shape repeats across every market so peers compare at a glance.
Access30%82

Strong access: Houston and North (DFW) have low congestion, generation sited near demand, and more robust transmission than the west, plus ERCOT's fast connect-and-manage energization.

Availability25%64

Availability is workable with cheap self-supply gas; the load pockets are gas-served and dense.

Cost25%80

Higher cost than the west, but still low by national standards; deliverability is the reason to pay it.

Momentum15%88

Highest momentum in ERCOT: the DFW and Houston corridors anchor the Texas data-center build.

Carbon5%45

Carbon is the weak pillar (gas-heavy load pockets), immaterial in the default lens.

Default weights, which lean toward cost and access rather than carbon: Access 30 · Availability 25 · Cost 25 · Momentum 15 · Carbon 5. Momentum reflects the data-center build already underway, not just stated intentions.
Seller view: Read these the other way: momentum is your customer pipeline, cost is your revenue ceiling, and access is how hard it is to build and sell here, not only to connect.

Reliability overlay

Reliability adjustment: the five-pillar score of 78 is reduced to 70, a deduction of 8 points, reflecting the delivery-reliability and firm-supply risks flagged below. Reliability is reported as five separate layers, never as one combined label, because they answer different questions and a strong answer on one does not cover a gap in another: what has actually failed on the bulk system, what a forward assessment expects of firm supply, how the local network performs, what your contract actually promises, and what your site is designed to ride through. Any one of them can cap the tier.

Historical bulk-system performance: Minor flags found

ERCOT-wide assessment applied to the Central sub-region: Winter Storm Uri (Feb 2021) forced about 20,000 MW of rolling blackouts, the largest manual load shed in US history; post-Uri winterization has improved winter performance but the tail risk remains. The Houston and DFW load pockets have robust local transmission, a deliverability strength captured in the access pillar.

What this means: A large new load faces occasional exposure here. Monitor conditions and keep a contingency plan.

event-based · FERC/NERC Feb 2021 cold weather final report

Historical utility-territory delivery performance: No reliability flags found

Average customer interruption (SAIDI) of 98.33 minutes per year in 2024, excluding major event days as filed.

measured · EIA Form 861, Schedules 3B and 3C (annual electric power industry report) (two major-event methods, IEEE; respondent-defined, customer-weighted blend of 3 utilities, regional context only)

Role not yet declared. We have not recorded whether this is one operator’s filing or an average across several, so read it as context until we do. mixed methods: IEEE 44%; respondent-defined 56% of customers. Major event days are excluded throughout; the methods differ only in how those days are identified, a smaller difference than the spread between the utilities themselves. Constituents below carry their own standard. It is a territory-wide history and is silent on: performance at a specific substation or feeder; transmission-level service, which is a different product from distribution service; the industrial or large-load customer class specifically; N-1 or other redundancy architecture at the supplying substation; contractual curtailment rights the utility may hold over the load; power quality and momentary interruptions, which this metric excludes by construction; on-site UPS, storage or generation; forward adequacy: it is a record of what happened, not a forecast.

Which utility would serve you?

The market figure above is an average across these territories. Your site sits in one of them, not in the average. Each row below is that utility’s own filed record, which is the evidence a Project Case can actually rest on.

Serving utilitySAIDI min/yrCustomersMajor-event method
Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC (TX)67.284,013,062own method
CenterPoint Energy (TX)150.092,847,806IEEE 1366
Denton County Elec Coop, Inc (TX)26.9319,523IEEE 1366

Filed to EIA Form 861 for 2024, excluding major event days. Territory-wide averages: see the layer note above for what they do not establish.

Forward resource adequacy (assessed): Tight

NERC's 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment rates ERCOT elevated-risk grid-wide: about 20 GW of new large loads plus a more variable resource mix raise the risk of long-term shortfalls across the interconnection.

What this means: A large new load should expect genuine exposure to forced power cuts (curtailment), price spikes, and delays in getting connected, and should design in backup power or firm supply contracts.

assessed · NERC 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment

Contractual service terms: interruptible available

ERCOT-wide: fast access is conditioned on accepting curtailment at system peaks; the 4CP transmission mechanism further rewards curtailing at the four coincident annual peaks.

What the service contract promises, as distinct from how the system has performed · ERCOT large flexible load standards

Designed site resilience: not applicable at market level

Utility feeds, UPS, storage, on-site generation, islanding, black start and the residual energy you still expect to lose are properties of a specific site design, not of a market. This layer only exists once there is a site, and we never assert it for you.

Confidence: High. Each input is labelled as measured, modelled, or drawn from a specific event, and is framed as a risk to a prospective large new load, not as a verdict on any utility or grid operator. Forward adequacy is an assessment of what is expected, not a measurement of what has happened; it is a forecast and is labelled as one.
Seller view: Tight forward capacity (firm supply promised for future years) is scarcity that firm generation and storage get paid for; an adequacy flag is a demand signal for new supply, not only a risk to a load.

Supply relief outlook

Will the power crunch ease before your load energizes? This nets the demand racing for capacity against the new supply likely to arrive and the old supply leaving. A cross-side read, using the same data a seller sees the other way.
Tightening
Demand pressure
Fast load growth competing for the same capacity.
Can new supply arrive
The same fast energy-only build path, applied where transmission is robust and the load pockets are well served.
Future firm supply
Future firm supply: tight.

What this means: The supply picture looks likely to tighten; a new load should lock firm supply early and expect competition for capacity.

Reliability metrics

Delivery reliability (measured)

The average customer loses about 98.33 minutes of power per year (2024). This is the standard regulator outage measure (SAIDI); lower means a more reliable grid.

Source: EIA Form 861, Schedules 3B and 3C (annual electric power industry report) (two major-event methods, IEEE; respondent-defined, customer-weighted blend of 3 utilities, regional context only)

Hard, cited measures behind the reliability overlay above: the regulator outage series (SAIDI, measured, published with a lag) and the forward resource-adequacy assessment (a measured forecast). Framed as risk to a prospective large new load, not a verdict on any utility.

Connection friction

How hard it is to connect a large new load here, and how long it takes. Part of the PowerGridIQ Connection Friction Feed. Labelled proxy; confidence Med.

Friction level

Low

Typical connection wait

1-2 years

Source: ERCOT interconnection process

This market's friction level, wait band and full story are free here. The precise typical wait in months, and every market ranked side by side, are the Analyst Desk.

Energy-only connect-and-manage keeps Houston and DFW among the fastest large-load connections in the US.

ERCOT's energy-only, connect-and-manage framework is the fastest large-load path in the US, and the Central load pockets (Houston, DFW) pair it with robust transmission so a firm load can actually draw its power. A 75 MW readiness threshold and posted security now apply, but there is no capacity-market queue to clear.

What builds the 24-month wait

6
6
12
Application & screening6 mo
Interconnection study & agreement6 mo
Construction & energization12 mo
Typical time to energization24 months
How the typical connection wait breaks down by stage. Stages overlap in practice and vary by project; the split is our estimate anchored to the operator process, and the total is the representative time to energization. Anchored to the operator process (ERCOT interconnection process).

Data-center share of demand pressure: Rising. Sources: ERCOT interconnection process · ERCOT large loads. The full cross-market connection dataset is available through the Connection Friction Feed.

Seller view: Connection difficulty is both your own time-to-revenue and a barrier limiting competing supply from reaching this market.

Realized cost band

What a large electricity user pays for power here on one declared case, 100 MW contracted demand, 95% load factor, HV service, per megawatt-hour. Not the wholesale price and not the sticker tariff: energy plus the grid, delivery and other charges that land on the bill. It is a range, because real contracts vary, and it is labelled by how it was built.

Recurring cost, delivered

$55 to $95 per MWh

Midpoint about $72 per MWh

How this band was built

triangulated

From 2 public fragments

What builds the $72 midpoint

$52
$15
Wholesale energy$52
Transmission & delivery (4CP)$15
Ancillary services$5
All-in delivered$72 /MWh
How the $72/MWh figure is built up, component by component, for 100 MW contracted demand, 95% load factor, HV service. The split is our estimate; the total is the midpoint of the compiled band (triangulated). Recurring cost only: customer-funded connection capital is a separate one-off and is not included. The Houston and DFW load pockets pay a premium over the west for deliverability: generation sits near the load and the transmission is robust, so a firm 24/7 load can actually draw its power. That deliverability is what the premium buys. Anchored to published figures (ERCOT 2024 State of the Market (Potomac Economics)).

Where the cost lands

$72
Low $55Midpoint $72High $95
A band, not a single price: the cheaper end is a well-structured contract on favourable terms, the higher end a less optimised one. The midpoint is our best central read.
What is in the number: Wholesale energy in the Houston and North load zones, above the west because these are demand centres, plus transmission cost allocation (the 4CP mechanism) and ancillary services. No capacity market.

The Central sub-region costs more than the west, but the power actually reaches the site; deliverability is what the premium buys.

This market's band is free here; the ranked cross-market table with every market's precise midpoint is the Analyst Desk. See the ranked view.

Basis: triangulated from public sources, in US dollars per MWh delivered to a large high-load-factor load, excluding refundable taxes. Sources: ERCOT 2024 load-zone prices (Modo Energy).

Seller view: This delivered price is the level a competitive supply offer must beat, and the revenue ceiling a merchant plant works against here.

Data provenance and freshness

What we hold for this market, field by field. Each tier below is assigned from the evidence actually held for that field, with provenance. A low tier means we looked and it is thin; it is not a verdict on the market.
cost: M3connection: M1reliability: M2carbon: M2regulatory: M2local capacity: not_assessed
Against a Standardized Project Case, the binding field is connection, reliability. That is what a standardized case would turn on here; a readiness result for your own project depends on your own requirements, siting and utility, which this market-level read does not know.
Read against other uses: Discovery and monitoring: M1 · Market comparison: M1 · Project Case with a carbon requirement: M1 · Conditional site diligence: insufficient.
Depth is not a rating strength, a confidence score or a feasibility conclusion. An aggregate is only ever shown for a named use case, and equals the lowest tier across that use case's required fields. Definitions v1.0. See the full coverage matrix.
How solid the data behind this rating is, on two separate axes plus recency. Source reliability is how measured the numbers are, as opposed to triangulated or modelled. Coverage is how many of the decision-relevant data dimensions (reliability, connection, and cost) are compiled for this market. The two are kept apart because they answer different questions: a market can have strong sources on the little that is covered, or broad coverage that still leans on models. Neither grades the rating itself. The rating is a cited opinion, graded separately and falsifiably by the public track record and baseline measurement plan.

Source reliability

Moderate

1 of 3 data layers measured

Coverage

Full

3 of 3 dimensions: reliability, connection, cost

Last reviewed

June 2026

per-layer vintages below

LayerMethodVintageFreshnessSource
PGIQ Rating opinionopinionJune 2026CurrentPGIQ methodology
Reliabilitymeasured2024FreshEIA Form 861, Schedules 3B and 3C (annual electric power industry report) (two major-event methods, IEEE; respondent-defined, customer-weighted blend of 3 utilities, regional context only)
Connection frictionproxy2025/26FreshERCOT interconnection process
Realized costtriangulated2026FreshERCOT 2024 load-zone prices (Modo Energy)

Freshness reflects each layer's refresh cadence: reliability annual to three-yearly, capacity-auction and queue yearly, tariffs every year or two. The full cross-market freshness dashboard is at /data-quality.

What this market can and cannot answer yet

No market-level read closes a project case on its own, and saying only that would waste the evidence we do hold. Below is what is established, what is open, and what to do next.

What is established

  • Recurring cost band $55 to $95 per MWh, midpoint $72, basis triangulated, against the 100 MW archetype
  • Historical utility-territory delivery performance 98.33 minutes per year (2024)
  • Historical bulk-system performance (event-based)
  • Forward resource adequacy (assessed)
  • Contractual service terms (reported)

What is open

  • Designed site resilience
  • local_capacity evidence

Who would actually serve you

Territories in this market, each with its own filed record: Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC, CenterPoint Energy, Denton County Elec Coop, Inc. Which one serves a given site depends on where that site is.
Who runs the connection process: not yet compiled for this market. This is wayfinding rather than evidence, and its absence is a gap in our compilation, not a fact about the market.

Credible ranges today

  • Cost $55 to $95 per MWh, midpoint $72 (triangulated)

What could disqualify this market

  • Summer scarcity pricing and peak reliability.
  • Rising large-load concentration in the corridors.

Five questions for the utility or system operator

  1. What is the available capacity at the bulk supply point and substation that would serve this site, and what would a 100 MW request do to it?
  2. What are the milestone dates from a complete application to full firm energisation, and which network upgrades would a 100 MW load trigger?
  3. What is your own territory's SAIDI and SAIFI for the industrial class, on which major-event standard, and what redundancy serves the candidate substation?
  4. Is firm service available at 100 MW, and what curtailment rights would you retain over us once we are energised?
  5. What is the all-in delivered rate for 100 MW at a 95% load factor, including demand, network and rider charges, under the tariff that would actually apply?

Documents that would advance the case

  • The area or substation capacity study, and the current queue position list.
  • The interconnection or system impact study, and a specimen connection offer.
  • The utility's own reliability filing and the substation single-line diagram.
  • The applicable large-load tariff or the draft electric service agreement.
  • The current tariff sheet with all riders, and any large-load contract terms.

Outlook drivers

↑ Upgrade triggers

  • Continued DFW and Houston build converts the queue into operating capacity.
  • Battery and solar additions ease the summer peak.

↓ Downgrade triggers

  • Load-pocket congestion rises as demand concentrates.
  • A Winter-Storm-Uri-scale event triggers restrictive large-load rules.

Key risks

Peer comparison

Trades like
ERCOT West (same market, cheaper)
Ahead
on deliverability and momentum
Behind
on cost and carbon
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Rating history

June 2026
New ratingNew rating: Tier 2 Strong assigned (ERCOT Central sub-region).
🔒 The full time series behind ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW), how its score, recurring cost, and interconnection queue (the line to connect to the grid) have moved month by month, is part of the Analyst Desk. The rating actions above are always free.
Every rating action is dated and explained, and the log is only ever added to, never edited. Reviews happen on a regular schedule and whenever a significant event occurs. "Affirmed" means we reviewed a development and the tier held; "Under review" means a significant item is being assessed and the rating could change.

Score history

How ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW)'s reliability-adjusted score and tier have moved, month by month. Part of your Analyst Desk.

Loading history…

How does ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW) compare to the other 78 markets?

This page is our full read on ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW) alone, and it is free. To decide where a large load should actually go, you need every market side by side, ranked on recurring cost and time-to-connect, with the history and alerts when your shortlist moves. That is the Analyst Desk.

With your Analyst Desk, compare ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW) against every market side by side, ranked on recurring cost and time-to-connect, with the full history and shortlist alerts.

+ Add to your shortlist Recurring cost, ranked Connection friction, ranked Get the Analyst Desk →
Cite as: PowerGridIQ Rating, "ERCOT Central (Houston & DFW)" (Tier 2 Strong), as of June 2026. A proprietary, directional screen for siting a large electricity load; not a connection guarantee, and not investment, engineering or procurement advice. Sources and methodology at powergridiq.com/methodology. © PowerGridIQ.