This is a real GridTracker research brief, generated in minutes using the GridTracker MCP and published here as an example. Every figure comes from verifiable records.
GridTracker Research Brief
Co-Located AI Load in ERCOT: The Goodnight Campus
One project traced through three public-record datasets: data center permits, the interconnection queue, and the PUCT docket corpus.
GridTracker Research | 2026-07-13 | Subject: Crusoe Energy's data center campus at the Goodnight wind farms, Armstrong County, Texas | Every figure links to its underlying record (table at the end)
Key Findings
11 months
Early visibility
The campus was in official records a year before its regulatory fight surfaced.
Armstrong County tax abatements (2024-11-12) named the SPVs, phases of 530 MW and 500 MW, and 1.47M sq ft, 346 days before the first PUCT filing.
525.5 MW
Full shutdown in 30 min
The full campus load must shut down within 30 minutes on ERCOT instruction.
Docket 58881 conditions require breakers opened and load fully disconnected, and ban all demand response revenue, in exchange for net-metering a 265.5 MW wind farm.
Backup < load
Inferred from testimony
Sworn testimony implies the site cannot ride through curtailment on backup power.
Ensign's expert describes unrecoverable hardware, data, and cooling damage from abrupt curtailment. A fully backed-up site would take none of that damage (see The Backup Tell).
554 days
COD slip, co-located wind
The second wind farm slipped four times, then moved earlier for the first time in July 2026.
Goodnight Wind II holds an executed IA throughout; only daily queue snapshots reveal the 2025-11 to 2027-06 slide (see When the Power Actually Arrives).
669 MW
The next filing
Crusoe's next co-location is already in the record.
A 669 MW load behind the Willow Springs wind farm (Haskell County) was filed 2026-07-01, PUCT Docket 59943, ahead of any announcement cycle.
The Three Lenses
Permit record
8 government records
County abatements, Comptroller registrations, SPV chain. First record 2024-11-12.
Interconnection queue
2 ERCOT projects
Daily snapshots since 2024: 14INR0033 (operational) and 23INR0637 (IA executed).
Docket corpus
5 PUCT proceedings
58881, 59220 (contested), 59399 (contrast), 59943 (forward signal), 59970 (compliance).
Why it matters: press releases say a 1 GW-class AI campus is coming to the Texas Panhandle. The public record says who actually controls it, what operating constraint it carries, what its backup posture likely is, and when its power actually arrives. None of that is in the press.
Two Years of Signal, One Chart
Who Actually Controls It
| Entity | Role in the record | Where it appears |
|---|---|---|
| Crusoe Energy Systems, LLC | Developer of the campus; testified it has no access to or control over the load operations (now renamed Crusoe Technology, LLC) | Abatements; Docket 59220 testimony |
| Ensign Infrastructure, LLC | The large load customer of record and operating counterparty. Per sworn testimony, a former Crusoe tenant that "purchased the site"; the Commission's order says only "assigned," and Ensign's ownership is undisclosed in the record | Dockets 58881, 59220 |
| GN DC1, LLC / GN DC2, LLC | Property SPVs holding abatements and tax registrations | County + Comptroller records |
| FGE Goodnight I / II, LLC | Owners of the co-located wind farms | ERCOT queue; PUCT registration 20771 |
The name on the press release (Crusoe) is not the counterparty that matters. Per its own testimony, “Crusoe will not have any access to or control over the Data Center Load operations.” Open diligence question preserved by the record: no filing discloses who owns Ensign (a Delaware LLC), and no party has certified whether it is or is not a Crusoe affiliate.
The Arrangement, and the Obligation Attached to It
“Requiring full curtailment of Crusoe Two in addition to Crusoe One would require Ensign to curtail a total of 525.5 MW of firm load in response to taking a 265.5 MW intermittent wind generator into a net metering arrangement.”
The Backup Tell
Reading between the filings: the site likely cannot carry its full load on backup power. Backup specifications were filed confidentially, but three public statements triangulate the answer.
1. The rule
Curtailment at this site is defined as breakers opened and load "fully disconnected from the ERCOT System" within 30 minutes.
2. The testimony
Ensign's expert testifies that abrupt curtailment causes cascading hardware failures, unrecoverable loss of computational work, and thermal events from cooling loss.
3. The inference
A site with backup capacity at or above full load takes none of that damage. The testimony only makes sense if backup is materially smaller than 525.5 MW.
“Abrupt, unplanned curtailment carries serious operational risks: cascading hardware failures across server clusters, corruption or loss of active computational work that cannot be recovered, data storage integrity failures, and thermal events caused by the sudden loss of coordinated cooling infrastructure.”
The Control Case: Amazon at Comanche Peak
| Crusoe Goodnight (Dockets 58881 / 59220) | Amazon Comanche Peak (Docket 59399) | |
|---|---|---|
| Load / generation | 525.5 MW behind a 265.5 MW wind farm (2x) | 1,200 MW behind a ~2,400 MW nuclear plant (0.5x) |
| Backup, per public record | "Will include backup generation." No size, fuel, or ratio disclosed | "Generating capacity equal to or exceeding the expected demand" |
| Posture on conditions | Contested through briefing and rehearing | Volunteered the 30-minute mechanism; requested approval "without imposition of any conditions" |
| Expected grid draw | "Not fully self-supplied"; relies on system when wind is low | "I do not expect the Comanche Peak Load to ever be served by grid power" (Vistra SVP) |
Same statute, same mechanism, opposite risk profiles. The difference is backup capacity, and it is legible only in the docket record.
When the Power Actually Arrives
Goodnight Wind II is fully studied with an executed interconnection agreement. A static queue export says “healthy.” Daily snapshots say its delivery date slid 554 days before moving earlier for the first time this month.
Corridor effect: the same Alibates to Tule Canyon 345 kV corridor, a graveyard of withdrawn 200 MW wind projects in 2019 and 2020, drew roughly 6 GW of new solar, wind, and storage requests filed 2023 through 2025, including over 1.2 GW of dedicated battery requests on the same line segment. Load pulls generation, and the queue shows it in real time.
Forward signal: on 2026-07-01 a Crusoe Technologies subsidiary (Haskell DC Owner LLC) filed the same structure at the Willow Springs wind farm: a 669 MW load, ERCOT ID LLI-2251, PUCT Docket 59943. Anyone watching the docket stream saw the next campus before any press cycle.
Underlying Records
| Record | Dataset | Date | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crusoe Goodnight Campus facility (ID 91735c1999ba): 8 government records (Ch. 312 abatements; Comptroller reg. LD246216) | Data centers | 2024-11-12 on | GridTracker app |
| Goodnight Wind, ERCOT 14INR0033, operational | Queue | queued 2012-07-23 | GridTracker app |
| Goodnight Wind II, ERCOT 23INR0637, IA executed | Queue | queued 2023-04-19 | GridTracker app |
| Docket 58881 final order (Crusoe One conditions) | Dockets | 2026-04-23 | PUCT interchange |
| Docket 59220 ERCOT study report | Dockets | 2026-05-29 | PUCT interchange |
| Docket 59220 Bojorquez direct testimony (Ensign) | Dockets | 2026-06-03 | PUCT interchange |
| Docket 59220 Ensign/Crusoe initial brief | Dockets | 2026-06-26 | PUCT interchange |
| Docket 59399 Amazon/Comanche Peak amended application | Dockets | 2026-05-19 | PUCT interchange |
| Docket 59943 Willow Springs / Haskell DC application | Dockets | 2026-07-01 | PUCT interchange |
Method. All facts sourced from official records via GridTracker: the data center permit dataset (data version 2026-07-08), daily ERCOT queue snapshots and change log (2026-07-08), and the full-text PUCT filing corpus. Figures appear as reported by each source; third party estimates are excluded. The backup capacity finding is an inference from sworn testimony, labeled as such. This research is reproducible end to end through the GridTracker application, bulk data exports, or the GridTracker MCP client for AI systems. Questions: [email protected].
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