Powering the Permian – Streamlined Permian Basin Reliability Plan to increase energy production in 2025
November 20, 2024
Yourbasin.com
by Chris Talley
MIDLAND, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – The Permian Basin Petroleum Association held their November membership luncheon Monday.
The PBPA hosted Commissioner Lori Cobos of the Texas Public Utility Commission as their featured speaker to highlight a new plan to grow the need for energy in West Texas.
ABC Big 2’s Chris Talley was there and spoke with the commissioner about what this could mean for energy consumers in 2025.
“Electricity is top of mind,” said Commissioner Cobos. As the Permian Basin continues to grow exponentially, the need for reliable energy is the goal.
“The [PUC], ERCOT, and the stakeholders are very much engaged in these very important issues. How do we meet electricity demand in the future? Growing electricity demand. How do we ensure that we have the infrastructure that is needed,” explained Commissioner Cobos.
That’s what the Texas PUC Commissioner Lori Cobos said as she thinks of the future for West Texans.
“According to ERCOT Statistics, the region is expected to nearly 26 thousand megawatts of electricity demand by 2038,” explained Cobos.
But what exactly does that look like, Cobos puts that into perspective.
“1 megawatt is the equivalent of 200 homes, so you multiply that times 26,000 and that’s 5.2 million homes,” explained Cobos.
With the increased demand over the next decade, the Permian Basin Reliability plan comes in is said to help with construction of transmission infrastructure to move power in the area, serving the millions of homes and businesses. Cobos tells ABC Big 2’s Chris Talley this is an investment the Basin needs – especially for oil and gas jobs.
“As we know well in this community, the oil and gas industry is the backbone to the local economy, so you can expect a lot of job growth as a result of providing this investment to move more power into the areas so the industry can expand and electrify their operations especially in areas that have been harder to reach like the Delaware Basin, within the Permian Basin region.”
Texas House Bill 5066 was signed by Governor Greg Abbott in June 2023 for the PUC to develop a reliability plan earlier this year. With the plan to be implemented in 2025, Cobos said progress is already underway.
“Companies have already started assembling to build the infrastructure, it’ll be a multi-year process, but it will be done as efficiently and effectively as possible,” said Cobos.