Post: SB6: major changes coming for large loads in ERCOT

SB6: major changes coming for large loads in ERCOT

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed SB6 to improve grid reliability. Signed on June 20, SB6, will directly impact large load customers (consumers of more than 75MW).  

SB6 requires ERCOT to ensure that each utility serving a transmission-voltage customer interconnected after 31 December 2025 develops a protocol and installs necessary equipment or technology before the customer is interconnected, to allow the load to be curtailed during firm load shed, unless it is a “critical load industrial customer” or the load is designated as a “critical natural gas facility.” ERCOT will also develop a reliability service to competitively procure demand reductions from large load customers. 

SB6 also requires the PUCT to adopt standards for interconnecting large load customers “in a manner designed to support business development […] while minimizing the potential for stranded infrastructure costs and maintaining system reliability.”

The PUCT’s standards must require the large load customer to disclose to the interconnecting utility information about the customer’s on-site backup generation facilities (facilities not capable of exporting energy to ERCOT and that serve at least 50% of on-site demand). During an energy emergency alert, SB6 also provides for ERCOT to issue reasonable notice that large load customers with on-site backup generating facilities may be directed to either curtail load or deploy the customer’s on-site backup generation. SB6 also directs the PUCT to establish criteria by which ERCOT includes forecasted large load of any peak demand in resource adequacy and transmission planning models and reports.

In addition to the interconnection standards, SB6 creates standards and requirements for the co-location of large load customers with existing generation resources. Under SB6, a power generation company, electric cooperative, or municipally owned utility must submit a notice to ERCOT before implementing a net metering arrangement between an operating stand-alone generation resource registered in ERCOT as of 1 September 2025 and a new large load customer. ERCOT must study the system impacts of a proposed net metering arrangement and removal of the generation on the system.