Texas paused new data-centre development on 3 August 2026 while it reviews the projects already in the queue, and the EIA cut its forecast for the state in response: Texas electricity load growing 6% in 2027, not the 14% forecast a month earlier
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) lowered its forecast for Texas electricity load growth in 2027 from 14% to 6%. This revision follows an August 3 announcement by the Texas governor to pause new data center development. The EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook, which completed its analysis on August 6, 2026, noted that U.S. electricity generation has been rising due to growing demand from data centers.
Verified 2026-08-14
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A state pause on data centres changed the power outlook quickly, showing how policy can slow the AI build-out.
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- American Electric Power, one of the largest US utilities, which counts hyperscalers and manufacturers among its new large customers, signed fresh load commitments in the third quarter of 2026 and now expects its contracted extra load to reach 84 GW by 2031 AEP signed 15 GW of new load commitments in a single quarter
- AI data centres worldwide reached a power capacity comparable to New York State at peak demand in 2025, which Stanford's AI Index puts at 29.6 gigawatts
- OpenAI does not disclose GPT-4o's resource footprint, so Stanford's 2026 AI Index Report turned to independent researchers' estimates of the water needed to cool the servers behind it — as much as 1.58 million kilolitres a year — more than 1.2 million people drink annually
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