Worked example: a 300 MW data center request

By Batu Yetki, founder of Voltane.

The request

The request: a 300 MW data center, inside ERCOT, with power needed by 2030, on about 500 acres. No client sent it. Voltane uses this request as the acceptance test for its own engine: the same project has to come out of every step with the same project type, the same footprint, the same MW and the same pass, fail and unknown counts.

This page describes the steps and what each one checks. It gives no result numbers, because none are published for this request.

What the engine checked

Search. Texas parcels are screened as data center sites: enough land for the campus footprint, inside ERCOT, with the map's exclusions applied.
Connection points. The search can start from a transmission substation inside ERCOT and read the parcels around it. A substation nearby is a place to ask, not available capacity.
Time to power. An estimate, shown as a range, of the months a new grid connection takes, read against the 2030 target. It comes from the public interconnection history of similar projects.
Price signals. ERCOT day-ahead market prices for the site's load zone, with the retrieval date.
Planned transmission. The nearest located project on ERCOT's planning list, as a dated fact.
Gas. Mapped pipelines near the site.
Large-load rules. The security, study fee and withdrawal cost of a large-load interconnection request under Texas SB 6, each figure sourced (SB 6 calculator).
The brief, the site report and the price sheet. The shortlist goes into a brief with its unresolved must-haves and next checks. Each site gets a report and a one-page price sheet, with facts and estimates kept apart.

What came back

The output of a request like this has a fixed shape:

A shortlist of sites, each with its must-haves marked pass, fail or unknown.
A source and a date on every fact.
A range and a method on every estimate, labelled as an estimate.
The unresolved must-haves, listed, with the next check that would settle each one.

A site is not counted as meeting the requirements while a must-have is unresolved. The sample brief shows the same shape for a solar request, with its real figures.

What stayed unknown

Whether 300 MW can be served. No public dataset states available capacity at a substation. Voltane's capacity signal is a proxy (distance to transmission and queue competition), never available MW. Only the utility's and ERCOT's large-load study answers this.
The real date. The time to power estimate is generation queue history, not large-load history, and not a date a utility has agreed to. Whether 2030 holds is a study result.
Planned transmission. A planned project is a dated fact. It is not capacity.
Gas supply. A pipeline nearby is proximity. It is not deliverable fuel, firm transport or a tap right.
Flood. A site that is not fully under an effective digital FEMA flood map has unknown flood coverage. It is shown as unknown, never as 0%.
The owner. Voltane does not publish landowner names. Each site leads to the official county record instead.

What a client would do next

Pull the official county record for each shortlisted site and confirm ownership, boundaries and current use.
Take the shortlist to the utility for a large-load review. That study, not the screen, says what can be served and when.
Price the request under SB 6 before filing it.
Settle each unknown with the check named beside it.

Voltane does not buy, option or broker land, and it does not act as anyone's agent. Contact with landowners and utilities is the client's to make.

To run this for your own project, send your MW, target year, region and acreage through Find me a site. It starts with a request form and a booked call. For a site you already hold, Analyze my site is available by request. See also time to power and how the estimate is made.

Questions people ask

Does this example show real results for a 300 MW data center?

No. It describes the steps and what each one checks. No result numbers are published for this request, so none are given.

Can Voltane tell me whether a substation has 300 MW available?

No. No public dataset states available capacity at a substation. Voltane shows proxies and dated facts, and names the utility study that would answer the question.

How do I start a request like this?

Use the Find me a site page: tell Voltane the MW, target year, region and acreage you need. It starts with a request form and a booked call.

More worked examples

Need a site, or have one?

Tell us what you need and Voltane finds, reports on and prices candidate sites in ERCOT. Or bring a site you already have for a path-to-power report (by request for now).

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Worked example: a 300 MW data center request in ERCOT