Texas Gov. Abbott signs SB 6 — large-load (≥75 MW) interconnection reform; mandatory remote-disconnect / curtailment for entrants post Dec 31 2025; bellwether state model for the federal FERC ANOPR

Opening

On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 6, restructuring large-load interconnection in the ERCOT market. The bill applies to electrical loads of 75 MW or more (threshold adjustable by the Public Utility Commission of Texas), mandates a flat $100K minimum transmission-screening study fee, imposes uniform financial-commitment requirements for transmission infrastructure, requires post-December-31-2025 entrants to build in remote-disconnect / emergency-load-shedding capabilities, and empowers ERCOT to order curtailment of large loads under grid stress.

What Happened / Key Facts

Scope: 75 MW or larger loads, including hyperscale data centers, crypto miners, and large industrial manufacturers. The PUCT can adjust the threshold via rulemaking.

Key requirements:

• Flat $100K minimum transmission-screening study fee paid up front
• Uniform financial-commitment requirements (security deposits or prepayment agreements) for necessary transmission infrastructure
• Disclosure to interconnecting utility of any similar electric service requests elsewhere in Texas
• For new entrants connecting after December 31, 2025: mandatory remote-disconnect capability for emergency load-shedding; ERCOT authority to curtail operations, force a switch to on-site backup generation, or completely cut power remotely during grid emergencies
• Net-metering review process for co-located generation arrangements

Implementation:

• PUCT opened Project No. 58317 on June 30, 2025 for SB 6 implementation rulemaking
• Rule adoption targeted for early 2026

Why This Event Matters

Texas SB 6 is the state-level analog of the federal FERC large-load interconnection ANOPR that Wright would direct four months later (October 23, 2025; 2025-10-23–doe-directs-ferc-anopr-large-load-interconnection). The two regulatory designs share the same fundamental bargain: large loads get queue priority and connection certainty in exchange for accepting curtailment-flexibility and grid-upgrade cost-share terms. The Texas model is bidirectionally informative — it provided the policy template that Wright’s FERC directive followed, and it tests in a single state the legal-and-political viability of the federal version.

The Texas implementation also reveals the structural tension in the deregulatory package: SB 6 is not pure deregulation. It adds regulatory oversight (PUCT review, ERCOT curtailment authority, $100K screening fees, disclosure requirements). The Texas Republican legislature chose to add this oversight because unconstrained hyperscale-and-crypto-miner interconnection had threatened ERCOT grid stability and triggered Winter Storm 2021 / Summer 2023 reliability events. The federal package, by contrast, is designed to minimize such oversight at the FERC level — which is why Wright had to invoke rarely-used DOE-over-FERC authority to force the ANOPR rather than letting FERC develop its own framework on a slower timeline.

The result is a regulatory-design asymmetry: Texas, the state with the most data centers and the most crypto miners and the most renewable-and-fossil power capacity, has imposed more oversight than the federal model the same Trump administration is trying to push at FERC. Texas’s revealed preference — at the state level where reliability politics are immediate — is for more large-load discipline, not less. The federal package is the policy choice not to learn that lesson.

Broader Context

Texas’s status as ERCOT’s sole-state grid (the only major U.S. grid not interstate-connected, hence largely outside FERC jurisdiction) is what makes SB 6 a state regulatory action rather than a federal one. ERCOT’s regulatory architecture is governed by PUCT and the Texas Legislature; FERC’s jurisdiction is limited. This is the same structural feature that gave Texas the political room to impose the oversight package without federal preemption concerns — and the same feature that makes Texas’s SB 6 not a direct precedent for FERC’s RM26-4-000.

The Virginia data-center-corridor analog is different in pattern. Virginia (Loudoun County most prominently) approved zoning amendments in March 2025 designating data centers as a conditional / Special Exception use in areas where they were previously by-right, and the Board of Supervisors approved a Phase 2 Standards and Locations Project Plan on September 16, 2025. State-level Virginia bills HB 2101 / SB 960 / HB 2035 target ratepayer cost-shifting and water/energy reporting. Virginia’s pattern is local-zoning friction + state reporting-and-cost-allocation oversight — different from Texas’s interconnection-and-curtailment focus, reflecting Virginia’s PJM-grid integration and the fact that Virginia’s friction surface is community-impact (water, ratepayer cost-shifting, electrical infrastructure) rather than grid-reliability.

Research Gaps

• PUCT Project No. 58317 rule adoption — what specific rules emerged from the rulemaking, and how were they modified by industry comment?
• Empirical impact on the ERCOT interconnection queue after the bill’s effective date — has it slowed datacenter / crypto-miner build-out in Texas, or has the package been operationally neutral?
• Industry-vs-ratepayer-advocate split on the rulemaking record
• Whether the federal FERC ANOPR (RM26-4-000) ultimately adopted Texas-equivalent or Texas-lighter terms

Related Entries

• 2025-07-23–eo-accelerating-federal-permitting-data-center-infrastructure
• 2025-10-23–doe-directs-ferc-anopr-large-load-interconnection
• datacenter-permitting-deregulation-2025
• epic-inv6-energy-systems-convergent-demand-shock