The Daily Baseload Brief

PUCT held its 20 August open meeting on ERCOT's request for a good cause exception to extend Batch Zero deadlines, the most consequential near-term decision for the roughly 474 GW of large-load interconnection requests - approximately 90% from data centers - currently queued in Texas.

ERCOT had suspended Batch Zero classification notifications that were originally due 7 August after Governor Abbott directed a comprehensive audit of all data center projects advancing through the interconnection process before any could move forward. At the 14 August open meeting, ERCOT said it expects the verification process to take several months, but less than nine months, and that it still aims to complete the broader Batch Zero study by its original deadline of 9 April 2027. ERCOT is implementing the audit through two workstreams: a Batch Zero eligibility audit for all large loads of 75 MW or more, and a separate community impact audit for computational loads of 25 MW and above.

CATL announced on 17 August 2026 that all 20 of its battery plants have achieved ISO 14068-1 carbon-neutral certification, making it the only battery manufacturer to reach that milestone while shipping at terawatt-hour scale. The company said zero-carbon electricity accounted for 100% of its core operations' consumption in 2025, and that carbon emission intensity fell approximately 77% compared with 2022. CATL also unveiled a roadmap to extend carbon neutrality across its full value chain by 2035, with new suppliers required to provide product carbon-footprint data from 2027. The announcement did not identify the certifying organisation or disclose the volume of residual emissions offset.

Global energy storage cell shipments reached 467.84 GWh in the first half of 2026, up 94.8% year on year, according to InfoLink Consulting. Q2 shipments hit a record 262 GWh, the third consecutive quarter above 200 GWh. Shipments to markets outside China totalled nearly 250 GWh in H1, crossing 50% of the global total for the first time. InfoLink raised its full-year 2026 forecast to 1,026 GWh - the second upward revision this year - citing book-to-bill ratios above 1.2 at multiple manufacturers and export front-loading ahead of Q4.

California's Assembly Appropriations Committee advanced two virtual power plant bills on 13 August. SB 913 would require the CPUC to establish a valuation methodology for customer-sited battery systems exporting to the grid during periods of stress; SB 905 is a companion measure. A separate CAISO staff proposal, scheduled for the board on 26 August, would allow behind-the-meter battery exports to participate in the statewide energy market.

In Latin America, energy storage deployment remains concentrated in demonstration projects, small-scale grid-support applications, and remote-area microgrids, with a large-scale market yet to take shape, as transmission and distribution infrastructure and market mechanisms continue to lag the region's accelerating solar build.^[1]