Dive Brief:
- Xcel Energy subsidiary Southwestern Public Service will receive $113 million in state funding to replace power poles, install grid monitoring equipment and bolster resilience for 167,000 customers in the Panhandle and South Plains areas of its Texas service territory.
- “This grant will go a long way in improving reliability for our customers, and we’re grateful for the investment in our region,” Brad Baldridge, interim president at SPS, said in a Wednesday statement.
- The award is being made through the Texas Energy Fund’s non-ERCOT grant program, for reliability improvements in areas of the state with utilities outside the Electric Reliability Council of Texas footprint. The program launched in 2024 to fund generation and grid upgrades following widespread blackouts during Winter Storm Uri in 2021.
Dive Insight:
The Texas Energy Fund has so far allocated more than $4 billion as part of the state’s reliability efforts. Within ERCOT, about $3.65 billion has gone to support new gas capacity. The outside-ERCOT program has allocated about $650 million for weatherization and other grid hardening efforts.
“Each reliability project complements the next, creating multiple layers of protection for consumers and businesses,” Public Utility Commission of Texas Chairman Thomas Gleeson said in a statement. “From substations and poles in the ground to the wires overhead ... this grant program is helping make every step in the process stronger.”
The PUCT administers the energy fund.
The grant to Southwestern Public Service will cover a drone-based pole inspection program for more than 273,000 structures. The utility will also install pole-mounted sensors to monitor conditions along distribution lines to detect and assess hazards in real-time and improve disturbance response times. Other grid upgrade and equipment modernization will be covered by the grant as well.
“These are important upgrades that will help us strengthen the grid, better prepare for severe weather and keep costs as low as possible, while continuing to support the safety of the communities we serve,” Baldridge said.
The PUCT has announced other energy fund grants recently, including $30 million to Rita Blanca Electric Cooperative for construction of a new substation and other upgrades, and nearly $9 million to Lamb County Electric Cooperative for reliability projects including transmission line replacement and increasing transformer capacity.
