FYI, the governor is Republican so you might be surprised/suspicious that he would be halting approvals. However, Gov Abbott had a political near-death experience a few years back involving an event called Snowpocalypse, in which the energy grid failed, so he might actually be motivated to make sure he's not put at risk of a repeat.
That's only one aspect of the pressure on him. The agricultural commissioner (also a Republican) fired a shot across his bow to place a state moratorium on data center projects. Plus, Abbott's support for the corrupt criminal Paxton and shoving a corrupt, cheating, gerrymandered map down the throats of voters spent a lot of political capital too. Abbott's hanging on by a thread.
> ERCOT is currently tracking more than 1,800 projects in the queue, representing over 474 gigawatts of electricity, or more than five times the grid’s record for peak demand