Oil, gas producers straining state’s electrical grid

In West Texas, an oil and gas drilling rush has overwhelmed local roadways, housing supplies and a limited pipeline network.

Now, the shale boom is straining the region’s electric grid, which was designed to handle a fraction of the power needed by oil and gas producers that dominate the West Texas economy.

Driving the power demand is a transformation in oil and gas operations as companies forgo expensive diesel and natural gas generators to power compressors and pipelines in favor of the cheaper option of hooking up to the grid.

The spike in electricity consumption, coupled with inadequate transmission, has slowed the development of new projects, such as sand mines, that support the energy industry. Excessive demand on a limited system also threatens the grid’s reliability in West Texas and could lead to blackouts caused by the voltage overload.

“To say that this is load growth like we have not experienced before is kind of an understatement,” said Jeff Billo, senior manager of transmission planning with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, commonly known as ERCOT, which oversees 90 percent of the state’s electrical grid. “There is not an area in ERCOT that has seen that kind of load growth before. That is unheard of.”

Fixing the bottlenecks has implications not only for the oil and gas industry, but for the Texas economy, the environment and electric customers across the state. New and expanded transmission would allow energy companies to lower costs, improve profit margins, increase production and continue to hire and expand, not only in West Texas, but in other parts of the state — including Gulf Coast ports where abun-