Texas utility regulators could make grid history with ‘superhighway’ lines

AUSTIN – The San Antonio Express-News reports that Texas is facing a $30 billion question about the future of its electric grid: Is it time to create a new, stronger backbone that can grow along with the booming demand for electricity? Or should it stick with the current system and run the risk of playing catch-up a short time later? Utility regulators this week could decide between expanding the grid with more of the 345,000-volt power lines that have crisscrossed Texas for 65 years or starting a new system that can carry more than twice as much voltage. In simpler terms, they’ll be considering whether the grid should start moving more electricity across Texas on a new system of high-speed multi-lane superhighways or keep expanding its system of smaller, two-lane roads.

It’s a key question. Texas already is dealing with overcrowded transmission lines that pose risks to reliability and could even cause cascading blackouts from a single overtaxed circuit near San Antonio. It comes as data centers are flocking to the state in search of massive amounts of power — and as population growth and increasingly severe weather are already testing the grid’s limits. The latest estimates suggest demand will grow an unprecedented 75% by the end of the decade. Grid experts worry that without the new approach, the state risks seeing its grid falling further behind its pace of growth. “We’re at a pivotal point to decide,” Kristi Hobbs, a system planner with state grid operator the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, told regulators earlier this year. “Do we want to continue building the system the way we always did, or do we want to consider a higher voltage that will set us up for the future?”