ERCOT is now projecting record growth and a large part of it is due to those electricity-guzzling data centers.
There are currently 444 data centers in Texas, either operational or planned, according to the online research tool Data Center Map.
Many more are expected to open, especially since the state comptroller said last year that a group of the largest data centers received more than a billion dollars in tax exemptions.
According to ERCOT projections, energy demand is expected to more than quadruple from this year to 2032.
ERCOT says that electricity use specifically from data centers will increase by more than 30 times in the next six years.
"A modern data center may consume anywhere from two to five gigawatts of power. Just to give you a context, the entire country of Luxembourg has a peak power rating of about 1 gigawatt. The country of Panama has probably 3.5 gigawatts in the peak," Dr. Harish Krishnamoorthy, an energy grid researcher at the University of Houston, said.
Dr. Krishnamoorthy said data centers may not be built as quickly as some think, and the future will also depend on regulations placed on them.
"One major issue that we see in the power industry now is the long supply chain queue for large transformers," he said. "Transformers, you used to get them in one or two years, now it could even take five years."
When it comes to the big questions, like 'Will prices go up?' and 'Will we see power outages?' ERCOT officials aren't giving any answers.