Evidence explainer
A 1 GW data-centre announcement is not a 1 GW operating asset
A practical way to distinguish campus ambition, grid requests, generation and IT load before comparing projects.
Pource’s research conventions. These labels are not substitutes for the terms of a utility agreement or ERCOT determination.
Before putting a megawatt figure into a model, ask what it measures. A proposed campus, an interconnection request, a power plant and the servers inside a building can all be described in MW. They answer different questions.
“1 GW” is a unit conversion: 1,000 MW. It tells you nothing about how much has been built, what has been approved or when a tenant can use it.
Read the noun and the verb
The noun tells you the boundary: campus capacity, grid import, generation or IT load. The verb tells you the state: announced, requested, studied, contracted or energized. Keep both. “Requested grid import” is much more informative than “power capacity.”
| Claim | Follow-up question |
|---|---|
| Announced campus capacity | Ultimate buildout or a funded first phase? |
| Requested or studied grid load | What process has been completed, and what remains? |
| Contracted power | For which site, under what conditions, and from what date? |
| On-site generation | Nameplate output, dependable supply or net power available to the data centre? |
| Energized capacity | Which electrical infrastructure is live, and does that establish an operating IT load? |
| IT load | Design capacity, contracted tenant capacity or measured consumption? |
A study is a milestone, not a delivery date
ERCOT describes its Batch Zero framework as a system-wide interconnection study process. A project’s progress within it matters, but it should be recorded as that particular milestone. Do not silently promote a study result into an unconditional right to draw power or a confirmed opening date. ERCOT’s description of Batch Zero.
Likewise, “contracted” needs the underlying context. A disclosed agreement may be meaningful without establishing that all network works are complete. If the source does not specify the conditions, record that limitation rather than filling it with an assumption.
Do not add unlike figures
Consider a hypothetical campus with a 1,000 MW ultimate plan and a 200 MW first phase. They are not 1,200 MW of development. The first phase may already sit inside the ultimate plan. A later release repeating the 1,000 MW ambition is not another project.
The same discipline applies to a campus with its own generation. A generator’s output and the site’s grid-import allowance are not automatically additive measures of usable IT capacity. Operating constraints, auxiliary demand and the electrical configuration need to be understood before making that calculation.
The minimum useful record
Store the number with its class, site or phase, source date and exact supporting wording. Add the conditions and unresolved questions. If the figure is derived rather than directly disclosed, show the calculation and its assumptions.
A blank field is preferable to a precise-looking figure with no defensible boundary. You can follow up on missing evidence. You may not notice an unsupported number once it has travelled into a valuation, a sales forecast or a competitor comparison.