Execute and fund the agreement before ERCOT will study the load

Both amounts are due the day the intermediate agreement is executed. Both are paid to the utility.

The study fee is $100,000, for studies run by the utilities and by ERCOT. The utility remits ERCOT's share. Unused study fee comes back within 60 days after the study ends. ERCOT protocols may add a second flat study fee. The $100,000 adjusts with the Consumer Price Index starting in 2032.

Security is $50,000 per megawatt of requested peak demand, or of the incremental megawatts on an expansion. A 300 MW request is $15 million. The order sets the per-megawatt rate. The $15 million is the arithmetic.

The utility may take only three forms. Cash sits in a segregated account earning at least the one-month Treasury bill rate. A guaranty requires BBB- from S&P, Baa3 from Moody's, or BBB- from Fitch. A letter of credit comes from a major U.S. bank, or a U.S. branch of a major foreign bank, at A- / A3 / Fitch A- or better. If more than one agency rates the guarantor or the bank, use the second-highest rating. The utility may ask for financial statements behind a guaranty or a letter of credit.

If the utility has to buy equipment with a lead time of 18 months or more before the second agreement, it credits this security toward that cost. Any shortfall is posted before the order. Direct interconnection costs are a separate cash payment, a contribution in aid of construction, and that cash is not refundable.

Site control has to cover enough land for the planned facilities. At this signing, that is a lease of at least five years from the date you expect to reach requested peak, a deed, or a signed option to purchase or lease on that same five-year term. If an affiliate holds the interest, the file needs a binding link among the customer, the affiliate, and the site.

The option dies at the next contract. The standard agreement accepts a lease of at least five years from the date you expect to reach contracted peak, a deed, or a signed purchase-and-sale agreement.

Disclose a substantially similar request anywhere in Texas if winning it would make you change, delay, or drop this one. That includes a request by an affiliate, by the end user you have contracted to host, or by a developer acting for either of them. The measure is a delay of a year or more, a change of 20% or more in requested peak, or a move of the point of interconnection. The disclosure names the ERCOT serial number if there is one, the location and load zone, the size, the timing, and the utilities. Competitively sensitive details may be anonymized. The utility may share that disclosure with the commission or ERCOT, and not otherwise.

The same file carries the development schedule and progress on geotech, water, wastewater, and gas. It carries the timing and status of the non-ministerial approvals: water, wastewater, air, and backup generation; noise, light, and traffic; emergency response and site security. It carries a month-and-year energization schedule in megawatts, power factor, and reactive power.

Water is its own disclosure. Volume, source, supplier, and cooling technology.

Backup generation is disclosed unit by unit if you have it or plan it. Nameplate, fuel, the run-hour and fuel-storage limits in the permits you hold, and how fast the unit can serve the load. Also how you will buy power, whether on-site generation will sync to ERCOT and serve the load, and whether you will register as a controllable load resource.

The utility can ask for updates after you sign. Build the permit and neighbor record before the officer attests. Those milestones are in the utility's file from that day, and staff can ask for the backup.

Within 60 days after the intermediate agreement is executed and funded, the utility asks ERCOT to start the study, unless the protocols let the customer file directly. The utility tells you within five working days of that request, of the study's start, and of each ERCOT communication about the project.

A change ERCOT's protocols treat as material requires a new interconnection request. The rule's examples are requested peak, the phased schedule, the point of interconnection, site configuration, load composition, and load type. That protocol test is separate from the one-year, 20%, and location test used for the parallel-request disclosure.

Within 60 days after the study report that allocates capacity, execute and fund the standard agreement. Contracted peak is the allocation the agreement states. It can be lower than you requested. Miss the 60 days and the utility cancels the request and notifies ERCOT.

Security at the standard agreement is the greater of $50,000 per megawatt of contracted peak or the system-upgrade costs the study allocated to you. Same three forms. Due at execution.

Cash posted with the intermediate agreement can move forward. Within 30 days of the allocation notice, say in writing whether that cash is returned or credited to the new security. Say nothing, and the utility credits it. A letter of credit or a guaranty from the first posting is returned within 30 days after ERCOT notifies the utility of the allocation. It is not credited. The second amount is a new instrument.

The agreement includes an acknowledgment of the large-load minimum billing demand under 16 TAC §25.193, for the period that section sets. Section 25.194 does not set the percentage or the term. An unpaid minimum bill is an amount the utility can collect from the security.

Direct interconnection costs are paid in cash, with no allowance to offset them. The utility invoices before it incurs the cost. Unpaid after 10 working days, the utility may draw the security and cancel the request. The amount is trued up to actual cost when the facilities are done, as a credit or a surcharge. It is not refundable.

Withdraw contracted megawatts later, and outstanding costs come off first, including that minimum bill. The utility then keeps 20% of the security tied to the megawatts you dropped and returns the rest. Notice is written. The utility has 14 days to tell ERCOT.

Energize, and 20% of the remaining security comes back at energization. The rest returns in 20% steps as you meet the minimum-billing milestones in the agreement. Break the agreement, and security posted under it may be forfeited.

Outstanding costs come off the intermediate security first: work the utility has already done, equipment it cannot return for a full refund, construction it cannot cancel, and services it cannot cancel. The utility may invoice or draw. An unpaid invoice is drawn after 10 working days.

Withdraw before ERCOT starts the study, and the rest comes back. Receive zero megawatts in every study year and withdraw before the standard-agreement deadline, and the rest comes back. Receive some of what you asked for and withdraw before that deadline, and the utility keeps 20% of the security tied to the allocated capacity. Stay in and miss the deadline, and the intermediate security is forfeited along with the request.

The 24-month clock runs on the energization schedule as a whole, not milestone by milestone. Miss it by 24 months and the utility has 30 days to tell ERCOT. Within 60 days of that notice it collects outstanding costs, keeps 20% of the security tied to the unused capacity, and returns the balance. The contribution in aid of construction stays paid.

ERCOT may put that capacity into a later study. The grounds include a canceled or withdrawn request, a missed standard agreement, the 24-month miss, a broken agreement, a failed audit, and information that is false or cannot be verified. The distribution utility cannot reallocate it. The transmission utility cannot reallocate it.

A load already inside ERCOT Planning Guide Section 9 on October 8 still signs the standard agreement to hold its allocation. Cash or security already posted is credited dollar for dollar. Miss the agreement and the utility cancels the request and notifies ERCOT within 14 days after the deadline.

The holdback, if you withdraw before that deadline, depends on the Planning Guide category:

• Sections 9.2.1.1(1)(e) and 9.2.1.1(1)(g): the remaining security comes back after outstanding costs.
• Section 9.2.1.2(1), if ERCOT allocated zero megawatts in every study year: the same full return.
• Section 9.2.1.1(1)(f), if some capacity was allocated: the utility keeps 50% of the security tied to that allocation.
• Section 9.2.1.2(1), if some capacity was allocated: the utility keeps 20%.

An interconnection agreement signed on or before June 1, 2025 keeps its own terms for direct interconnection costs. The other financial terms of the standard agreement still apply.

A customer that signed an agreement under 16 TAC §25.370(g) for the 2026 regional plan withdraws, or signs a superseding agreement that meets §25.194. If that load is also batch zero, the batch-zero rules control.

The utility file asks where the water, air, and backup-generation permits stand. It does not issue them. On September 21, Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to halt data-center permits until ERCOT finishes its review, and he told other state agencies to hold data-center approvals until that information is in. The interconnection agreement does not lift that hold.

Get the land interest into a form the intermediate agreement accepts, and know which form you will hold 60 days after the study report. An option will not carry.

Finish the local record the officer is about to attest. Water volume, source, supplier, and cooling. The status of the water, wastewater, air, and backup-generation permits. Noise, light, traffic, emergency response, and site security. Commission staff can ask the utility for the backup.

Cash posted up front can be credited to the second security. A letter of credit or a guaranty is returned when the allocation is noticed, and you post again.

Put the 60-day window on the calendar the day the study report arrives. Missing it forfeits the intermediate security and cancels the request. Withdrawing after an allocation, and before that deadline, costs 20% of the security tied to the allocated megawatts. In batch zero, check the Planning Guide category before you assume 20%. One of them keeps 50%.

Public Utility Commission of Texas, Order Adopting New 16 TAC §25.194, Project No. 58481, Item 218, filed September 18, 2026, with changes from the proposal at 51 Tex. Reg. 1942 (March 27, 2026). Preamble: Interchange 58481_218_1684654. Adopted text: 58481_218_1684656. The rule implements PURA §37.0561.

Texas Register acknowledgement, Project No. 58481, Item 219, filed September 18, 2026. The Interchange description states an effective date of October 8, 2026.

Intermediate security, study fee, withdrawal, and the 60-day study start are §25.194(d) and (e). The standard agreement, contribution in aid of construction, and minimum-bill acknowledgment are §25.194(f), cross-referencing §25.193. Unused capacity is §25.194(g). Batch-zero holdbacks are §25.194(h). The 2026-plan choice is §25.194(i). Reallocation is §25.194(k).