The votes happened in Austin. The building happens in about 44 Texas counties, most of them west of Interstate 35.
What happened
Carlos Nogueras Ramos of The Texas Tribune reported that on September 11, the Public Utility Commission of Texas approved the Howard to Solstice line, roughly 370 miles of 765 kilovolt transmission running from San Antonio out to the Permian Basin across 14 counties. Two weeks before that, Nogueras Ramos covered the same commission voting unanimously for two more 765 kilovolt lines proposed by Oncor, running more than 400 miles across at least 30 counties, starting in Bosque County and running southwest.
Add it up and Texas cleared more than 770 miles of the highest voltage line class in the country inside of 15 days. A 765 kilovolt line moves far more power than the 345 kilovolt lines that carry most long haul electricity in ERCOT today, and it loses less of that power as heat along the way, which is why planners reach for it when the demand sits a long way from the generation. ERCOT has never had one. Three are now approved.
Howard to Solstice is a joint build by CPS Energy, the utility the city of San Antonio owns, and AEP Texas. It runs from CPS Energy’s Howard Road Station in Bexar County out to AEP Texas’s Solstice Station near Fort Stockton, in Pecos County. The commission cleared it with a condition attached: that the two companies keep working with landowners on route adjustments that keep more of the structures off grassland.
Why it counts
Years of hearings, route maps and testimony just turned into a construction program. That is the part worth watching, because a 765 kilovolt line is not a taller version of the poles people see from the highway. It is drilled foundations, steel lattice towers assembled on site, conductor pulled by specialized equipment, and new substations at both ends to step the voltage down for the local system. Every mile is work for line crews, equipment operators, surveyors, foundation contractors and substation technicians, and it is work measured in years, not in a season.
The trade that does this work is paid well and is already stretched. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 131,900 electrical power line installers and repairers nationally, with median pay of $95,320 in 2025, and projects the occupation to grow 10 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all jobs. That is roughly 10,900 openings a year. The entry ticket is a high school diploma and an apprenticeship that runs up to three years, not a four year degree and not a pile of tuition debt. Texas is about to put its own demand on top of that national number.
The other reason it counts is where the power is headed. The Permian Basin is one of the few places in the country where oil field electrification, gas processing and new industrial load all land in the same handful of counties, hundreds of miles from where most Texas electricity is made. Wires are how that gets solved, and wires take crews.
The numbers
- 370 miles across 14 counties at 765 kilovolts, the Howard to Solstice line approved September 11, per The Texas Tribune.
- More than 400 miles across at least 30 counties, the two Oncor lines approved unanimously on August 28, per The Texas Tribune.
- $13.8 billion, the estimate the commission had in front of it for the 765 kilovolt version of the Permian Basin Reliability Plan, against $12.95 billion for a 345 kilovolt build, as Robert Walton reported for Utility Dive in September 2024.
- 26 gigawatts, the Permian load forecast for 2038 in that same plan, roughly a third of what all of ERCOT pulls on a summer afternoon today, per Utility Dive.
- $100 million to $300 million a year, the congestion relief then Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty cited when the plan was approved, per Utility Dive.
- 91.1 gigawatts, the ERCOT record hourly peak set at 6 p.m. on July 22, 2026, about 6 percent above the 85.5 gigawatt record from August 10, 2023, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
- $95,320, median annual pay for electrical power line installers and repairers in 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"We’ve talked a lot about process, and to me, this is really an example, quite frankly, of the process working."
Commissioner Kathleen Jackson, Public Utility Commission of Texas, September 11, quoted by Carlos Nogueras Ramos in The Texas Tribune
What comes next
Approval starts the paperwork, it does not finish it. Easements get negotiated parcel by parcel. Steel, conductor and transformers get ordered into a supply chain that every utility in the country is pulling on at the same time. Contractors bid the segments, and the hiring follows the bid, which is why the first people on a job like Howard to Solstice are survey and right-of-way crews, then the foundation outfits.
Two other Permian import paths went back to the administrative law judges after the September 11 meeting, on questions the commissioners raised about federal reliability standards and how consumer savings had been calculated, per The Texas Tribune. Those return to the commission rather than going away. Anyone tracking this work should watch the PUC docket calendar, because that is where the next several hundred miles get decided.
The thing we will be watching separately is the training side. Whether community colleges and utility apprenticeship programs in the Hill Country and West Texas add seats before the towers go up, or after, decides how much of this payroll stays in Texas.
The Bottom Line
Texas spent three weeks approving the wires it will spend the rest of the decade building. The line is steel and aluminum. The story is the payroll: the crews who set the towers, the operators who run the equipment, the apprentices who will top out on this job, and the substation technicians who will still be there long after the last conductor is strung. Reliable power gets built by people, and Texas just ordered several years of that work.
Sources: Carlos Nogueras Ramos, “Texas approves more transmission infrastructure,” The Texas Tribune, September 11, 2026; Carlos Nogueras Ramos, “PUC approves two statewide transmission lines,” The Texas Tribune, August 28, 2026; Robert Walton, “Texas OKs Permian Basin reliability plan, option for state’s first 765 kV transmission lines,” Utility Dive, September 27, 2024; U.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy, August 3, 2026; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, line installers and repairers; CPS Energy, Howard Solstice Transmission Line Project; AEP, “AEP Texas set to construct one of the first 765 kV transmission lines in Texas”.
Reliable power. Affordable power. Great jobs.
Tips and corrections: amos.snead@positivecurrent.com
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