Batch Zero is locked — 9 days to the ILLE deadline

The PUCT gave final approval to ERCOT's Batch Zero protocol package (PGRR145/NPRR1325); the rule is no longer pending and the deadlines below are binding. The clock now reads:

• 2026-07-10 (9 days away) — ILLE submissions: study and dynamic-model data plus eligibility materials due to the interconnecting TSP/DSP. Missed means excluded from Batch Zero. Also the last day for legacy LLIS approvals under the serial process.
• 2026-07-24 (23 days away) — TSP/DSP qualification packages due to ERCOT, plus PCLR Form W Part A for projects electing the provisional pathway.
• 2026-08-07 (37 days away) — deficiency notifications on submitted qualification packages (projected date).
• 2026-08-31 (61 days away) — final inclusion cut; the Batch Zero study roster is fixed (projected date).

The queue jumps to 466,497 MW — and the studies surge is on

ERCOT's June LLI status update (data current as of 2026-06-18) puts the tracked large-load queue at 466,497 MW — Standalone 396,789 MW, Co-Located 69,708 MW — against 438,600 MW in the prior report (2026-05-20), a change of +27,900 MW on the GW-rounded funnel. Two movements inside that total tell the real story:

• Under ERCOT Review roughly doubled: 151,100 MW, up +75,700 MW from 75,400 MW. With the ILLE deadline days away, loads are racing to get studies in front of ERCOT.
• No Studies Submitted fell: 257,600 MW, down -50,100 MW from 307,700 MW — projects either started studies or were cleaned out. ERCOT notes it scrubbed the LLIS data ahead of Batch Zero, removing cancelled and duplicate tickets and combining multi-stage requests into single LLI numbers.

The cleanup also touched the approval tiers: Approved to Energize now reads 8,926 MW, with an observed non-simultaneous monthly peak of 3,900 MW and an observed simultaneous peak of 3,675 MW. "A2E but not operational" rose to 3,200 MW (+1,200 MW) while "Observed Energized" in the projection table fell to 5,700 MW (-1,400 MW) — tier reshuffles consistent with the duplicate-ticket removal, not load disappearing.

First look: the Batch Zero eligibility table

The June update adds something new: a Batch Zero tracking table by weather zone, the first public cut of who is actually positioned for the batch. Across 481,400 MW tracked in the table:

• Not Included (unless studies start soon): 287,200 MW
• Path to Studied: 97,200 MW
• One Study Complete: 46,600 MW
• Base Load Eligible: 24,900 MW
• Studied/Base Eligible: 9,600 MW
• Studies Validated: 8,700 MW
• Potentially Invalid: 4,200 MW
• Under Review: 3,000 MW

Read plainly: the bulk of tracked load is not yet on a path into Batch Zero, and the window closes 2026-07-10.

On the docket

• Project 59142 — comments on PGRR145 landed from Crusoe Technologies (2026-06-12), CyrusOne (2026-06-16), and First Ammonia (2026-06-17), all filed around the approval.
• Project 58484 — Chairman Drew Darby filed a letter regarding evaluation of transmission cost recovery (2026-06-30).

Housekeeping

This issue covers three weeks: the weekly action had been failing silently since the 2026-06-11 issue (a missing API key). The pipeline is fixed and now publishes a numbers-only edition rather than skipping a week when narration is unavailable. Every figure above comes from the committed dataset — the June deck's rows are in data/queue_timeseries.csv, each carrying its source URL and content hash.

Why this digest exists

lli-radar is the public record of ERCOT's large-load interconnection queue, assembled from primary sources nobody else maintains.

ERCOT tracks roughly 410 GW of requested large load — about 87% of it data centers — but publishes the queue only as aggregate MW in PDF slide decks tied to TAC/LLWG meetings. Within those decks: 9,042 MW approved to energize, but only 3,883 MW observed operational — a 1.6% funnel from request to reality. There is no machine-readable time series, no consolidated regulatory feed, and ERCOT's own Large Load Portal (targeted end-2026) will be customer-facing, not public.

lli-radar fills that gap with three things: the queue time series (every LLI Queue Status deck since October 2022, extracted into one dataset), the regulatory radar (Batch Zero milestone countdown, PUCT docket feeds, LLWG/TAC material watch), and this weekly digest — what changed, in plain English, with numbers injected from the data, not generated. Everything is files in git; the repo history is the audit trail.

This is issue #1. With the repo younger than seven days and no prior digest, there is no diff baseline yet — everything below is a first inventory.

The current queue picture

From ERCOT's published slide decks: about 410 GW of requested large load, roughly 87% of it data centers. Against that, 9,042 MW are approved to energize, and 3,883 MW are observed operational — the 1.6% funnel from request to reality.

These are the headline figures we will track over time once the deck extraction pipeline is live (see the closing section).

The Batch Zero clock

Two deadlines fall within the next 30 days:

• 2026-07-09 (28 days away): The PUCT takes up ERCOT's Batch Zero protocol package (PGRR145/NPRR1325) at open meeting. The package is Board-approved and recommended effective 2026-07-11; this is the approval gate.
• 2026-07-10 (29 days away): ILLE submission deadline — study/dynamic-model data plus eligibility materials due. Missed means excluded from Batch Zero. It is also the last day for legacy LLIS approvals under the current serial process.

Further out:

• 2026-07-24 (43 days away): TSP/DSP qualification packages due — attestations, disclosures, financial-security confirmations — plus PCLR Form W Part A for projects electing the provisional pathway.
• 2026-08-07 (57 days away): ERCOT issues deficiency notifications on submitted qualification packages.
• 2026-08-31 (81 days away): Final inclusion cut — the Batch Zero study roster is fixed. Excluded projects wait for Batch 1 (potential case build June 2027).
• 2027-04-09 (302 days away): Batch Zero final report and MW allocation. Allocated MW is reserved against restudy; the commitment gate converts allocation to firm.

What we watch weekly

ERCOT documents. First inventory stands at 14 documents now watched — all 14 in the lli_hub set (data/manifest.json). Future issues report additions and changes against this baseline.

PUCT dockets. First inventory across the dockets on our radar:

• Docket 58479: 67 filings on record, spanning 2025-07-31 to 2026-03-26. Most recent includes a PUC OPDM order adopting new 16 TAC §25.205 (2026-03-26) and Vistra Corp.'s comments on PGRR145 (2026-03-20).
• Docket 58480: 59 filings, spanning 2025-07-31 to 2026-02-09. Most recent includes a PUC OPDM order adopting new 16 TAC §25.370 (2026-02-06).
• Docket 58481: 203 filings, spanning 2025-07-31 to 2026-04-20. Recent comments from Cormint Data Systems (2026-04-20) and Mission Power on the IA security posting framework (2026-04-17).
• Docket 58482: 27 filings, spanning 2025-08-01 to 2026-04-14, including CyrusOne, LP comments (2026-04-08).
• Docket 59142: 36 filings, spanning 2025-12-17 to 2026-05-26, including Data Center Coalition comments on net metering arrangements in Batch Zero (2026-05-14).

The queue time series. Honest status: data/queue_timeseries.csv is not yet present — the deck extraction is still being built. Until it lands, the queue numbers above come from the published decks and we cannot yet show week-over-week movement. We will say so plainly until the pipeline is live.

Expect future issues to report changes against these baselines: new and changed ERCOT documents, new docket filings, the Batch Zero countdown, and — once extraction ships — the queue time series itself.