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What AI Means for ERCOT and the Texas Grid w/ Haley Thomson

ERCOT expects peak demand to hit 150 GW by 2030. Here’s what Texas needs to do to manage that load.
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Welcome back to The Mining Pod! Today, Haley Thomson, director of energy trading at Luxor Technologies, joins us to dive deep into ERCOT's unique energy market and how Texas plans to manage the incoming wave of AI and HPC data center demand. We explore battery storage solutions, creative power generation approaches, and why Texas has become the epicenter of both crypto mining and AI computing infrastructure.

Notes:

• ERCOT expects 150GW peak demand by 2030

• ERCOT current peak load is 84GW (2024)

• 6GW of data center demand expected next year

• 24GW solar deployment planned 2024-2025

• 13GW storage deployment planned 2024-2025

• $40B worth of nat gas plants proposed

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

02:02 ERCOT's surging power demand

05:37 2023 power price spikes

10:42 ERCOT energy storage plans

17:58 Does storage help AI data center demand?

24:02 Baseload buildout trailing demand

30:01 PGM vs energy only

36:33 Creative energy work arounds

39:16 Does off grid power scale?

40:19 Types of AI power demand

45:35 Hyperscalers buying mining sites

48:40 Wrap up

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"The Mining Pod" is produced by Sunnyside Honey Inc. with Senior Producer Damien Somerset.

What AI Means for ERCOT and the Texas Grid w/ Haley Thomson