Texas needs new transmission capacity to expand and strengthen the power grid. State officials in charge of the power grid and business leaders are increasingly warning about the enormous consequences of inaction or delay, particularly in the face of surging power demand from growing economic sectors. TEBA commends Gov. Greg Abbott and other state leaders for working to provide greater transparency about new data centers seeking to connect to the grid in or near local communities. State officials must also continue advancing critical grid projects needed to ensure reliable, affordable electricity to all Texas households and businesses. Regulatory uncertainty threatens all major energy customers — jeopardizing further economic investment in the state. And transmission is crucial to connecting that economic

Across Texas, big prospective energy users are telling ERCOT that they want to put an unprecedented amount of load onto the state’s power grid. That means ERCOT has to figure out which of those loads are real and how the state will serve them. To do so, the grid manager is in the process of implementing what’s known as the batch study process.

Learn more about how the batch process works, where there are gaps, and how ERCOT can close them.

The massive growth projections for Texas’s ERCOT power grid raise a vitally important question for the future of our grid and our economy: who should pay for the transmission improvements needed to deliver this electricity? The existing system of transmission cost allocation is known as the Four Coincident Peak (4CP) program. Through 4CP, large consumers pay for transmission costs based on four peak-use (“coincident”) periods during the summer.  This system works well with existing users, in part because it encourages them to implement demand response strategies that reduce their use when energy is tight on the grid. But 4CP isn’t set up to allocate costs at the giant scale of new customers that are coming onto the grid — we

China is outpacing the U.S. on energy deployment. Texas is well-positioned to lead the fast energy buildout America needs. Check out TEBA CEO Rich Powell’s new op-ed in The Dallas Morning News detailing the advantages of Texas’s competitive energy market and the critical role our state can play in the economic race with China — delivering the low-cost, reliable electricity our nation needs. “It’s easier and faster to build energy in Texas than almost anywhere in the country. … It’s crucial to move the energy we need onto the grid faster, and Texas is best positioned to help.” Read Op-Ed