Patricia Ortiz/Houston Public Media
A panel of midstream energy leaders spoke at the Gulf Coast Industry Forum in Pasadena last Thursday.
During the panel, speakers discussed different challenges from the pandemic and future concerns about infrastructure as Texas continues to grow. Tony Chovanec is the Executive Vice President of Enterprise Products and one of the panelists for the forum. He said there are only a few clusters of data centers outside the state.
“They have to have gas. … many of them are looking now at Texas and saying, ‘We can’t wait, the opportunity’s too big, can we come to this island called ERCOT, and can we make it happen?’ That’s the reality,” he said.
Vincent DiCosimo is the Senior Vice President for Targa Resources and the second Midstream panelist. He said that 20 years ago data centers were mostly in Virginia because of a federal hub there.
“Today, the AI data centers can be anywhere. But they need to have power. They look at places that have gas pipelines already in place. So we are seeing AI centers come to Texas, and I think we’ll continue to be probably the most logical spot for it,” he said.
DiCosimo said it will be challenging for infrastructure to keep up with demand because permitting for gas can take a few years.
“Permitting is key, but something that challenges us is our permitting pathway for gas can be two years or three years, and the customer who demands it is maybe five months to a year and a half. So it’s a bit of a dislocation,” he said.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick was another speaker at the Gulf Coast Industry Forum. He said Texas has about 85,000 megawatts of power reserves and that according to ERCOT, Texas will have to double its power reserves to keep up with growing tech demand. One town south of Dallas called Wilmer, he said, is an example that will soon have data centers.
“When that’s built out, it’s a town of about 7,000 people I think, they will use more power than the city of Austin,” he said. “… but we can go a long way, because if we can reduce some of that, cause a lot of that [increased demand] were the data centers, crypto miners, and AI.”