Texas broke its all-time electricity demand record on July 22 with a preliminary hourly load of 91,089 megawatts, and ERCOT forecasts demand could double to 175,000 megawatts within six years. Bitcoin miners, who have enabled ERCOT to manage peak demand through voluntary curtailment agreements, represent flexibility now threatened by their conversion to AI and high-performance computing. Riot Platforms earned $56.7 million in curtailment credits in 2025 and $21 million in the first quarter of 2026, but uptime commitments required by AI tenants remove the emergency shutdown option. ERCOT is now turning to batteries and solar to compensate for this loss of flexibility, with batteries discharging a record 11,980 megawatts during the July peak.
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