OpenAI's decision to cancel its expansion at its Stargate artificial intelligence (AI) data center in Texas highlights the challenge the state's grid faces in planning for load projections that are as uncertain as they are massive.
OpenAI recently dropped plans to pursue a 600MW expansion at the Crusoe-owned Stargate data center under development in Abilene, Texas. Last September, OpenAI and Oracle announced plans to add 600MW to the additional 4.5GW they announced in July at the west central Texas site. OpenAI will instead expand capacity at other locations it is developing in multiple states, OpenAI's head of computing infrastructure, Sachin Katti, said 6 March on social media.
Stargate illustrates the uncertainty now affecting infrastructure decisions tied to large digital loads. Texas utilities are being asked to design and finance billions of dollars worth of transmission lines and substations for loads that may change in size, timing or location, or not proceed at all. Even when developers agree to fund their own connections or build their own power plants, the resulting demand for equipment tightens supply chains and raises costs across the system.
"This is about the most uncertain planning you can be doing right now," said Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist at the University of Texas and founder of energy consultancy IdeaSmiths.
The 600MW expansion may seem modest in relation to a 1,000 acre site that already has up to 5GW under development, but in terms of existing power systems, it is the size of a large power plant and comparable to some nuclear units, Rhodes said.
Gathering storm
The axed expansion alone would have required new substations and large transformers or a substantial on-site plant with its own fuel logistics. Its location outside the so-called Texas triangle, which comprises the state's most densely populated areas between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, further compounds the load demand on a less developed part of the grid.
Stargate developers chose Abilene for its proximity to west Texas' prolific natural gas fields and ample wind and solar resources. Renewable power sources and battery storage will be used to supplement gas-fired generation.
Officials with the Texas grid operator, known as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), declined to comment specifically about Stargate, but the agency said it is taking steps to address "significant and rapid growth in large data-center load, often concentrated in specific regions and on similar development timelines".
ERCOT is in the process of designing a new approach to evaluate large-load requests that it says will "support continued grid reliability as demand expands". The operator forecasts demand to more than double to 200GW by 2030 — driven by generative AI data centers, crypto currency-mining and industrial consumption — up from a peak of 87GW last summer.
Planners should assume only a fraction of that will ever get built, Rhodes said. Based on historical generation queues, he expects about 20pc of the headline numbers to come to fruition.
"The thing that I'm the most worried about is the affordability issue," Rhodes said. "You build all this stuff, and if you cancel your expansion, who's left paying for that infrastructure?"
Oracle and Crusoe did not respond to requests for comment.
