The words tenant, lessee and occupant appear zero times in the rule that allocates your megawatts

Update, October 24, 2026. Corrected the rule quotes against the current ERCOT Planning Guide Section 9 (version July 11, 2026), ERCOT Nodal Protocols Section 2 (August 1, 2026) and adopted 16 TAC 25.194. The Refinement Study protection is now quoted from Planning Guide Section 9.5.1(6), which also covers financial security and cost obligations. The lease quote is now attributed to adopted 16 TAC 25.194(d)(1)(A)(i), where the lease must run at least five years from the date the large load customer is expected to reach the requested peak demand. The withdrawal and non-utilized capacity section no longer attributes a six-month milestone trigger, mandatory reallocation and an 80 percent payment to TSP rate base to Planning Guide Sections 9.7.3 and 9.7.4; those terms track the proposed 16 TAC 25.194, and the adopted rule sets a 24-month trigger, a flat 20 percent subtraction with the balance returned, and capacity that ERCOT may reallocate in a future study. The study year and LCP quotes now come from Sections 9.3.2, 9.2.4(2) and 9.6(2)(a), the LCP definition now comes from Nodal Protocols Section 2, and two quotes that do not appear in the current Section 9 were removed. The timing caution and the September 13 note now follow Section 9.3.1(2) and Market Notice M-A080326-04. The Planning Guide search now names the twelve current documents checked, and the Studied Load schedule now names the study years in Section 9.3.2(5). The worked example now follows that schedule and labels its MW figures as illustrative.

Update, September 13, 2026. ERCOT issued conditional Batch Zero classifications on September 3, 2026 under Market Notice M-A080326-04. The classifications are conditional: the notice says each Large Load was included subject to conditions such as passing verification, and that failure to satisfy any applicable condition may disqualify the Large Load from Batch Zero. What a conditional base or studied classification means for land closings and long-lead deposits is covered in Batch Zero provisional classification and CapEx sequencing. The allocation mechanics described below are unchanged. The timing caution at the end stands, and the process remains behind its original schedule.

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Not in the adopted PGRR145. Not in any of the twelve documents that make up the current ERCOT Planning Guide: Sections 1 through 7, Section 9 and the four Section 8 attachments. We searched the full text of both for tenant, tenants, lessee, occupant, sublease and subtenant, and the count is zero in every case.

That is not an oversight to complain about. It is the structural fact that governs every multi-tenant campus in the Batch Zero process, and it means the hardest allocation problem on your campus is one the rules will never solve for you.

Here is why. A Large Load is defined by site and point of interconnection, not by occupant:

"One or more Facilities at a single site with an aggregate peak Demand greater than or equal to 75 MW behind one or more common Points of Interconnection (POIs) or Service Delivery Points."

Aggregation is geographic. So a campus with four tenants across three phases is one Large Load. One Interconnecting Large Load Entity. One Load Commissioning Plan. One interconnection agreement. One financial security posting.

ERCOT issues a number to that entity. What the entity does with it among tenants who signed leases at different times, for different phases, with different commencement dates, is not addressed anywhere in the rule.

The allocation is per year, and the early years are constrained

The Batch Zero Interconnection Study does not produce a single megawatt figure. Under Section 9.3.2(1), ERCOT shall establish a study scope and methodology to assess the steady-state and stability impacts "for years 2028, 2030, and 2032." Under Section 9.3.2(5), "ERCOT shall determine the amount of peak Demand that may be served reliably for 2028, 2030, and 2032 through full scope analysis and for 2029 and 2031 through limited scope analysis."

Five years, each with its own number.

For the studied years, Section 9.2.4(2) writes the result into your LCP:

"Upon the completion of the Batch Zero Interconnection Study, as described in Section 9.4, Batch Zero Report and Interconnecting Large Load Entity (ILLE) Commitment, ERCOT shall update the LCP to reflect the amount of peak Demand that can be served reliably for each year of the Batch Zero Interconnection Study scope."

So the realistic shape of a Studied Load outcome is not a number. It is a schedule: one figure each for 2028, 2030 and 2032 from full scope analysis, and one each for 2029 and 2031 from limited scope analysis. That is a phasing document before it is a grid document.

What the Load Commissioning Plan actually requires

The LCP is the instrument that carries your allocation. The Planning Guide takes its defined terms from Nodal Protocols Section 2, which defines the LCP as:

"A schedule, initially submitted by the Interconnecting Large Load Entity (ILLE), for connecting a Large Load in increments defined by the ILLE, compiled in the format prescribed by ERCOT, detailing dates and associated cumulative peak Demand amounts. The LCP shall cover the time period from the Initial Energization date through the date on which the Large Load is expected to energize its final amount of peak Demand."

Three required elements: load increments, dates, and cumulative peak Demand amounts, running from Initial Energization to the final amount of peak Demand. Section 9.2.4(1) adds that the LCP "must specify the load increments and timeline by which the ILLE intends to increase peak Demand."

Two things follow for a campus. The increments are "defined by the ILLE," and the schedule is "initially submitted by" the ILLE, so the ramp schedule is yours to propose, which means it has to be built from tenant commencement dates you may not have yet. And Section 9.6(2)(a) makes the LCP an operating limit, not a forecast: during continuing operations, the Interconnecting DSP, the Interconnecting TSP or, if applicable, the Resource Entity "shall notify ERCOT if it identifies that a Large Load has exceeded a limit on peak Demand established in the LCP."

A tenant that ramps faster than your LCP says is your compliance problem, not theirs.

The mechanic that should be in every lease, and is in almost none

Your allocation is protected against the grid operator and unprotected against your tenant. Both halves of that are in the rules, and they are not in tension. One keeps the Refinement Study from adjusting your committed number. The other exposes it to your own non-performance.

The protection first. Planning Guide Section 9.5.1(6), in the current ERCOT Planning Guide Section 9, version July 11, 2026:

"The Batch Zero Refinement Study described in this section shall not include an adjustment to the allocated peak Demand, the maximum allowed Low Power Consumption (LPC) values for any Large Load studied as a Provisional Controllable Load Resource (PCLR), the established MW Withdrawal limit and allocated peak Demand for any Large Load studied as a Withdrawal-Limited Private Use Network (WLPUN), financial security, or cost obligations for any Large Loads included in the Batch Zero Interconnection Study for which the Large Load has met the commitment requirements per Section 9.4, Batch Zero Report and Interconnecting Large Load Entity (ILLE) Commitment."

The Refinement Study shall not adjust the allocated peak Demand, financial security or cost obligations of a Large Load that met the Section 9.4 commitment requirements. It is a real protection, and it is narrow: it covers the Refinement Study only.

The exposure sits elsewhere, in the adopted large load interconnection rule, 16 TAC 25.194, rather than in the Planning Guide:

16 TAC 25.194(k)(1): "In a future interconnection study, ERCOT may, in a manner consistent with ERCOT protocols reallocate transmission capacity, including transmission capacity associated with: ... (B) a withdrawn request for interconnection; ... (D) a large load customer that fails, by 24 months, to satisfy a milestone in its schedule for phased energization;"

Withdrawal is not the only trigger. 16 TAC 25.194(g)(1), where SLLIA is the standard large load interconnection agreement:

"Not later than 30 days after a large load customer fails, by 24 months, to satisfy a milestone in its schedule for phased energization, as described in the SLLIA at the time of execution, the interconnecting DSP or the interconnecting TSP must notify ERCOT of the large load customer's non-utilized capacity. The 24-month period applies to the energization schedule as a whole, and not for each energization milestone individually."

Let the energization schedule in your SLLIA slip by 24 months and your capacity becomes non-utilized capacity that ERCOT may reallocate in a future study, without you having withdrawn anything.

The cost of getting there is set out in 16 TAC 25.194(g)(2) through (4): the utility draws down your financial security and applies it to outstanding amounts owed, then subtracts a flat 20 percent of the security tied to the non-utilized capacity and returns the balance, and contributions in aid of construction are not refundable (16 TAC 25.194(g) in the Texas Register at 51 TexReg 6939). The proposed rule would have refunded 20 percent and paid the remaining 80 percent to the TSP as an offset to rate base; the commission struck that provision at adoption (PUCT Project 58481 adoption order, Item 218, pages 212 and 213).

Now put that next to a multi-tenant campus. Your LCP milestone dates are built on tenant commencement. If an anchor tenant delays a phase by two quarters, that is a leasing conversation. If the delay reaches 24 months against the SLLIA energization schedule, it triggers a notice to ERCOT, a 20 percent security subtraction and capacity ERCOT may reallocate, and the tenant whose delay caused it has no privity with ERCOT and no obligation under your interconnection agreement.

That asymmetry is the thing to draft for.

What belongs in the lease

Five provisions, none of which appear in a standard data center lease.

An LCP milestone covenant. Tie the tenant's energization and ramp obligations to the specific LCP milestone dates, not to generic commencement language. The LCP is a filed document with named dates. Reference it.

A shortfall apportionment formula, agreed before the allocation arrives. If the campus receives less than requested in a given year, which tenant absorbs it? Pro rata by contracted load, priority by lease execution date, and phase seniority all produce different answers, and all of them are defensible. What is not defensible is discovering, when the Batch Zero report arrives, that three leases each promise capacity the campus did not receive.

Three defensible formulas, three different tenants short

Take a campus that requested 600 MW. Every MW figure in this example is illustrative, not an ERCOT result. The outcome is the schedule described above: under Section 9.3.2(5), ERCOT shall determine the amount of peak Demand that may be served reliably for 2028, 2030 and 2032 through full scope analysis and for 2029 and 2031 through limited scope analysis. Suppose the figure for 2028 is 350 MW. Three tenants are signed:

The 2028 shortfall is 250 MW. Here is what each apportionment rule does with it:

Same allocation, same three leases, three different outcomes. Pro rata shorts everyone and satisfies no one. Lease execution priority rewards Tenant A, who signed first but does not energize until 2030, and leaves Tenant C with nothing in a year it expected to be building. Phase seniority gives Tenant B its full contracted load and zeroes the tenant who signed first.

Every one of those is defensible. None of them is obvious. And if the leases are silent, the question gets decided under commercial pressure, after the number arrives, by whoever has the most leverage rather than by whatever the parties would have agreed at signing.

That is the conversation to have while the leases are still being drafted.

A later-year capacity provision. For load a lease places in 2029 or later, the lease should say what happens if ERCOT's figure for that year is lower than the tenant's phase requires: reduced commencement, abated rent, extension right, or termination.

Ramp discipline with teeth. The LCP limit applies to the campus Large Load, and under Section 9.6(2)(a) the utility shall notify ERCOT if it identifies that the Large Load has exceeded it. The lease needs a corresponding tenant obligation and a remedy, because the consequence of breach lands on the campus, not the tenant.

Delay damages sized to the actual exposure. A 24-month slip in the energization schedule applies posted security to outstanding amounts owed, subtracts a flat 20 percent of the security tied to the non-utilized capacity, leaves that capacity open to reallocation by ERCOT and leaves CIAC unrefunded. Standard delay damages are not calibrated to that. Size them to it, or accept that the campus is carrying a tenant's schedule risk unpriced.

Who is the ILLE, and can it be a tenant

The definition, from Nodal Protocols Section 2, is broader than most people assume:

"Any Entity upon whose behalf a Transmission Service Provider (TSP), Resource Entity, or Interconnecting Entity (IE) has submitted a request to interconnect a Large Load to the ERCOT System."

No ownership test. No tenancy test. "Any Entity." The operative constraint is procedural rather than substantive: the ILLE is whoever the request was submitted on behalf of.

And a tenant can satisfy site control. Under the adopted large load interconnection rule, 16 TAC 25.194(d)(1)(A)(i), the large load customer "must be able to demonstrate control of the proposed site of the load location through provision of one of the following legally binding property interests linking the large load customer and the proposed site of the load location". The first listed is "a lease agreement, signed and executed by the large load customer or an affiliate of the large load customer, for one or more parcels of land sufficient to accommodate the customer's planned facilities at the proposed site of the load location for a duration of at least five years from the date the large load customer is expected to reach the requested peak demand" (16 TAC 25.194(d)(1)(A) in the Texas Register at 51 TexReg 6931 and 6932).

So on the face of the rules, either a landowner or a long-term lessee could hold the role. What the rules do not address is whether it can change hands. We found no provision for assignment, transfer, or substitution of the ILLE designation.

The practical consequence is narrower than it first appears. Silence in the Planning Guide is not prohibition, and a change of entity would ordinarily run through TSP and ERCOT registration processes whether or not this rule addresses it. What the silence does mean is that you should confirm the path with your TSP rather than assume it, and settle the question before submission rather than discover it afterward. Whoever holds that designation carries the attestations, answers the verification RFI, posts the security and bears the reallocation exposure. On a campus where the landlord develops and tenants operate, that is a commercial allocation dressed as an administrative formality.

Why Texas is the market you can draft against

The reasonable response to all of this is to ask how Texas compares, and whether the constraints are worse elsewhere.

The honest answer is that Texas is the market where the mechanics are settled enough to plan against, and that is not the same as being the easiest.

Every other major market moved in 2026, and most are still moving. On June 18, 2026, FERC declined to issue a single national rule for large load interconnection and instead issued show cause orders to six RTOs and ISOs under section 206, requiring each to justify why its existing tariff remains just and reasonable. That is the same day the Commission approved PGRR145 in Texas, which is a coincidence rather than a connection: ERCOT is not FERC-jurisdictional for these purposes and was not among the six. Several sought abeyance rather than responding on the original schedule.

The shapes differ more than a ranking would suggest. SPP built the most developed large load framework of any RTO across three orders in 2026, and processes large loads serially, on a rolling basis, while batching generation. PJM's Board declined to create a load interconnection queue at all, writing in January 2026 that "At this time, the Board is not taking action to restrict the interconnection of new load through the creation of a dedicated load interconnection queue or through other limiting measures." The hedge is the Board's own, and it matters: a decision framed as current is a decision that can be revisited. MISO is designing both large load reliability requirements and a cycle-based study process in its stakeholder groups, neither of which is filed or approved. In Georgia, the standard large load tariff was closed in February 2025 to customers with expected peak demand of 100 MW or more at contiguous premises, which moves the terms into a negotiated contract rather than a published rate.

For a campus developer holding optionality across markets, the useful comparison is not which market is fastest. It is which market lets you write a lease against a known allocation mechanic. Today that is a short list, and the items on it are changing quarter by quarter.

What to do before the next milestone

Confirm which entity holds the ILLE designation and whether that is the entity you intend to carry the exposure.

Read your LCP against your rent commencement dates, specifically for the 24-month slip in the energization schedule that turns a leasing delay into non-utilized capacity.

Confirm that every lease says what happens if ERCOT's figure for the year its phase begins, anywhere from 2028 through 2032, is lower than that phase requires.

Agree the shortfall apportionment formula across all executed leases now, rather than after the number arrives.

One caution on timing. Under Planning Guide Section 9.3.1(2)(b), "ERCOT shall provide the Batch Zero Interconnection Study report to all Interconnecting DSPs and Interconnecting TSPs on or before April 9, 2027," and Section 9.3.1(2)(c) ties the commitment list to the 16 TAC 25.194 deadline for executing an interconnection agreement. The process is already running behind its own schedule under good cause exceptions the Commission granted on August 20, 2026. ERCOT issued conditional classifications on September 3, 2026 under ERCOT Market Notice M-A080326-04 on conditional Batch Zero classifications, and failure to satisfy an applicable condition may disqualify a Large Load. Those classifications are not final: ERCOT told its board that final inclusion or exclusion will be based on the eligibility verification and audit and provided in December, and that it is still determining the impact on the study timeline (ERCOT Batch Zero update to the Board of Directors, September 2026). Plan against the dates. Do not sign against them.

If your leases split one Batch Zero allocation among several tenants, our Power & energization work checks that the megawatts you have promised each tenant add up to what you actually hold.

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