Texas electric grid to be connected to rest of country for first time

Texas’ electric grid will be connected to the rest of the nation for the first time through a new privately built transmission line subsidized by federal money.

The Southern Spirit line, which is receiving $360 million of the $1.5 billion in infrastructure funding announced by the Department of Energy Thursday, would connect the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid to Louisiana and Mississippi.

The line would help Texas keep the lights on when bad weather knocks out parts of its grid, as happened during February 2021’s winter storms. The storms caused a massive energy failure, with more than 4.5 million customers left without power. Because Texas’ system isn’t connected to the rest of the nation’s power grid, it had difficulty tapping power from other states.

“For a long time, we’ve stared at ERCOT and thought, ‘how can we build more resilience into a system that looks more like an island than an interconnected grid, drawing on the resources in other parts of the country.’ This build-out is really transformational in breaking down the barrier between ERCOT and the rest of the country,” White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters, according to energy industry publication Power.

Renewable energy company Pattern Energy plans to start construction in 2028 with the line going into service in 2031. It is expected to cost $2.6 billion, would be 320 miles long and would offer 3,000 megawatts of high-voltage, direct current electricity in both directions. 

The line also would continue to keep the ERCOT grid independent of oversight from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Pattern Energy said.

Pattern Energy has acquired about half the land it needs across the three states to start construction, according to the Dallas Morning News. Efforts to get the line built were helped when Louisiana power officials approved the project in August.