WEST TEXAS (KWES)
Electric Reliability Council of Texas board approves the West Texas Transmission Project a $336 million deal.
The electrical distribution project is something West Texas has been asking for since April 2016.
Approval stems from the 8% growth that the region has shown on average since 2010.
The area would mostly concentrate on the Delaware Basin area.
There would be an electrical line nearly 200-miles long that would make a loop, shown in the map below.
One 85-mile line would run between the Riverton and Moss switching stations, with a second circuit added to the existing 16-mile 345-kV line between Moss and the Odessa line. A second 68-mile 345-kV line will connect the Solstice and Bakersfield substations. (source: www.rtoinsider.com)
Oil companies will still be required to submit approvals to the electrical companies but will now be able to have electrical support from the grid.
Stephan Robertson, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, states there are many different reasons to why you would want to run off the electrical grid opposed to self-generation.
"[We] are doing self-generation cost. The way our industry works is you might operate in one area for a decent amount of time until you get your wells established, and then once they get on production you move the large majority of the operation someplace else," said Roberston.
Using the electrical grid also helps with reliability in the sense of backup systems.
