ERCOT grid and land data, read the right way

Who this is for

• Developers new to ERCOT who want to read grid layers correctly
• Analysts building a first screen before paying for studies
• Anyone who has been told a site is "near a substation" and wants to know what that is worth

A line on a map is not a promise. A 345 kV line running past a parcel may be fully loaded. A substation a mile away may have no open bays. And a county with few queued projects may be quiet because the grid there is weak, not because it is open.

Voltane puts ERCOT and grid data next to Texas land data so you can do a fast first screen. Every layer below carries its source and date. None of them, alone or together, says how much power the grid can take at a point.

What Voltane checks

Every layer below is public data. The map and every brief show the source and date next to each value. Where a value is missing it reads "unknown", never zero.

How it works

1. Transmission lines carry a voltage class. Voltane measures each site's distance to the nearest line and favors 138 kV and higher.
2. Substations come from OpenStreetMap. Distance to the nearest one is measured from each site.
3. The ERCOT GIS Report lists every generation project asking to connect, by county, fuel, MW and status. Voltane totals it by county and shows the report month.
4. EIA-860 shows generators that are built, so you can see what is on the grid nearby.
5. Utility service areas show which utility serves an area and which grid it sits in.

What Voltane does not tell you

Voltane is a screening tool. Every result is screening only, not a site suitability determination. Before you commit money to a site you still need:

• Headroom on any line or at any substation. That needs a power flow study.
• Which queued projects will be built. A large share of queued MW drops out.
• Planned transmission upgrades, unless they appear in the line data.
• Curtailment or congestion risk at a node.
• Interconnection cost or timeline.

See the output

The sample Opportunity Brief is the first page of a real Texas solar brief: the shortlist, the open questions and the source and date on every fact.

Questions buyers ask

Is a site near a high-voltage line a good grid site?

It can be a better starting point, because tie-in costs rise with distance. But only a study tells you if the line can take your project.

What does a crowded ERCOT queue in a county mean?

Many developers see the same thing you do. It can mean good resource and good land, and it can mean you will wait behind them. It does not measure grid room.

How often is the queue data updated?

ERCOT publishes the GIS Report monthly. Voltane uses the newest report in each build and prints its date. The current build uses the August 2026 report.

Why is the transmission data from 2024?

The HIFLD line dataset had its final public release on 2024-09-30 before the portal closed. It is the most complete free statewide source. Newer lines may be missing.

Does Voltane cover parts of Texas outside ERCOT?

Yes. Sites in SPP, MISO and WECC parts of Texas are screened too, and labeled with their grid.

What should I order after screening?

An ERCOT screening study for your shortlist, then the full interconnection study for the sites you keep.

Further reading

• Where Texas can still connect
• Texas has more than one grid
• How Voltane works

Other ways to use Voltane

• Texas solar site selection
• Texas battery storage site screening
• Texas data center site selection, power first
• Texas county siting data
• US nuclear candidate sites