Transmission Lines and Good Times | Reading and Podcast Picks - June 28, 2026
The 765-kV story continues to unfold; new FERC directive; NRG opens Houston power plant; new reports from Columbia and MIT; Base Power expands to PJM; and plenty of other acronyms too.
Reading and Podcast Picks is a collection of what we’ve been reading and listening to over the last week or so about energy topics.
In addition to these R&P Picks, paid subscribers receive access to the full archives, Grid Roundups, and select episodes of the Energy Capital Podcast. Please subscribe today.
As we noted last week, the PUC paused its approval process for the Bell County East to Big Hill 765-kV line upgrade. Now hundreds of Central Texas landowners have filed a formal petition alleging they weren’t properly notified after route changes. Utilities, meanwhile, are pushing back on any slowdown:
“Load in West Texas, specifically, is growing much faster than local generation is able to provide, and even if local and on-site behind-the-meter generation resources come online, they’re all still needed to maintain a reliable system for Texans,” said Andrew Clark, an Oncor spokesperson, in an interview.
PUCT staff recommended the 765-kV lines based on a 2024 ERCOT study, citing their ability to move more power over longer distances with fewer losses. Despite higher upfront costs, planners [maintain] the lines are better suited for the region’s expanding load.
How data centers are complicating transmission expansion | Latitude Media
Latitude Media’s Catalyst podcast this week explored how opposition to infrastructure such as transmission lines and data centers can become a channel for broader concerns.
If you’re in a community where a data center is getting built, you’re also hyper aware of all of the infrastructure that is going on around that… And I think there is sort of the negative sentiment around data centers and AI in general, but it’s all snowballing with all of these other concerns that folks have about costs and again, like property value and pace of life and the views out there front windows, all of these things kind of coming together into just a generalized opposition.
Earlier this week FERC gave the nation’s six major grid operators 60 days to propose reforms, or justify their existing rules, governing how data centers and other large customers connect to the grid.
The purpose of the order is to expedite connections between large customers and utilities, but with some proposed protections for residential and small commercial customers…
The order also requires grid operators to examine how they accommodate co-location agreements, which allow data centers to be built at or near power plants, and “behind-the-meter” energy supplies, in which the data centers themselves build their own power plants…
Additionally, within 30 days, grid operators must submit a detailed report describing how they intend to ensure that adequate generation will be available to serve existing and new large loads.
Inside Climate News covers the specifics of where grid operators have flexibility, including in the definition of what large load is, in their piece.
