Pecos West is an approximately 280 mile 525 kilovolt high voltage direct current (HVDC) intertie line stretching from Bakersfield in Pecos County to El Paso, providing a valuable link between the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Western Interconnection. Pecos West will be open to all sources of electrical power generation and will be able to transport power in either direction along the line.
Pecos West is in the planning and development phase. We have identified preliminary corridors for the project and will continue to gather input from stakeholders as we further study the proposed project. Using that input, we will finalize our route analysis and initiate regulatory filings, with final approvals expected in 2024. Construction will commence after the project obtains the necessary regulatory approvals and secures land rights. Pecos West could be operational as early as 2029.
As a critical link between two independent grids, ERCOT and the Western Interconnection, Pecos West will provide much needed reliability benefits to the State of Texas.
With growing demand and increasingly frequent extreme weather events, like Winter Storm Uri and the summer 2019 heat wave, the Texas power grid faces challenges in supplying reliable power to consumers. As an independent power grid, ERCOT has limited connections to neighboring grids. Texas’ constrained transmission system provides few options for reliable power during emergencies, costing Texas customers billions of dollars a year. For example, a 1 GW intertie could have saved nearly $1 billion and prevented blackouts to 200,000 Texas homes during the extreme weather events that hit the state in Winter 2021, according to a report from the American Council on Renewable Energy.
By linking geographically and meteorologically diverse grids, Pecos West will enhance and strengthen both systems, offering access to cheaper, more reliable, and secure energy to Texas consumers.
Our relationship with landowners and communities is at the core of everything we do. We believe that building strong and lasting relationships is key to the success of the Pecos West Intertie. We are committed to developing the project in a collaborative manner, and we commit to conduct easement negotiations in a manner that is fair to landowners and respectful of their private property rights.
Our short video describes how Pecos West would make our independent power grid even stronger.
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We are seeking a determination that the project is in the public interest and that public convenience and necessity support the interconnection, permitting the project to proceed through additional federal and state approval processes. We will obtain all necessary approvals from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure ERCOT’s jurisdictional status quo as part of our future regulatory filings.