Power Wars | Reading and Podcast Picks - July 19th, 2026
PUC rules for data centers; Where chips come from; Texas breaks four solar and storage records; and new investments across the state.
Reading and Podcast Picks is a collection of what we’ve been reading and listening to over the last week or so about energy topics.
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Texas approves grid standards to keep data centers online | E&E News by POLITICO
The Texas Public Utility Commission voted to require data centers and other large loads to stay online during temporary grid disturbances. The goal is to avoid cascading power outages potentially caused when one data center trips offline.
“Without these requirements, events involving [large computational load] loss would increase in magnitude, potentially leading to system frequency and voltage instability,” ERCOT said in an impact statement, according to a PUC staff memo.
Frequency refers to the number of complete cycles electric currents undergo within one second. An abrupt frequency change could lead to localized power outages and, potentially, even grid wide issues, according to electricity experts.
Inside the AI power wars | Latitude Media
The Catalyst podcast breaks down how artificial intelligence procurement works and the differences in chip strategy among tech giants.
I think the action is going to concentrate in Texas. I think the way big data centers, big data center campuses are going to look like in a few years from now. Again, like obviously the scenario is we keep adding tens of gigawatts per year that keeps growing. So we’re in this AI scenario. I’m not religious. I’m not saying it’s going to be a terabot per year. We’ll see. But just if you sort of keep on that trajectory, I think at some point the only path is going to be to essentially build these massive campuses in West Texas. It’s already sort of going up pretty tremendously in West Texas, and I think it’s going to keep going up.
