Schwarz: The electricity capacity of the RGV will soon receive a big boost

MCALLEN, Texas – The Council for South Texas Economic Progress (COSTEP) held a panel June 3 in Mcallen at the Hilton Hotel DoubleTree Suites to discuss the South Texas electric grid with local utility stakeholders and economic-development professionals.

Hunt Utility Services, the parent company of Sharyland Utilities, had its director of transmission planning, Bradley Schwarz, speak at the meeting to inform officials on the future of South Texas’ transmission projects. Schwarz showed pictures of a project referred to by Hunt Utility Services as “second circuit and close the loop.” He said this was a supplementary circuit on a double circuit capable tower from San Antonio, to Laredo and down the border to the Port of Brownsville. Schwarz said there is a new station being placed in San Benito titled “Kingfisher.”

“That was a joint effort between STEC [South Texas Electric Cooperative], ETT [Electric Transmission Texas], AEP [American Electric Power and Sharyland],” Schwarz said. “They all had parts of the project where we had to add the wire to the second side of the circuit that was energized early last year and currently we are building the ‘close the loop’ portion of it which took a little bit longer because we had to go through a CCN [Certificate of Convenience and Necessity] with the commission [Public Utility Commission of Texas.]”

AEP and Sharyland have a joint project for a seven mile transmission line from Kingfisher to La Palma starting in 2026. Schwarz said there will be a new station named, “Shalabay” connecting to the Palito and Kingfisher stations, serving as a 345k loop. With this addition, there will be four circuits in Port of Brownsville’s general area to serve 650 megawatts.

“This project just got approved in December of last year and is ongoing,” Schwarz said. “There are CCN and routing studies that are currently ongoing. AEP and Sharyland are both working on those, and Sharyland should be breaking ground on some of our infrastructure in that area shortly.”

The start date for the project is projected to be in 2029.

Schwarz also said there is potential for a 765 kilovolt-amperes transition system to be built that could aid the 345 system to transmit power effectively. The 765 system would be established from West Texas, and he said it could benefit the region because power could move on-and-off the grid through long distances.

“The commission [Public Utility Commission of Texas] has a heavy hand on what ERCOT does from a study perspective,” Schwarz said. “That is probably the best way for end users to impact this process and speed it up is to reach out to your representatives and your senators.”

Moving forward, a “high capacity” 345 kilovolt-amperes, two-to-three circuit will be established in the Rio Grande Valley, Schwarz said.

“That is coming in 2027 and that will be a big boost to this region and will provide thousands of megawatts of additional capacity for end users,” Schwarz said.

Here is a video recording of Schwarz’s presentation:

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