The $100 Billion Question

Well, and as you said that, you know, each of our households pricing is going to go up.

What about the industrials that are using it? Are they having to pay anymore? Are they paying for these extra transmission lines? Because what I'm hearing from not only users like me that aren't in the path, but the people that aren't in the that are in the path.

They're saying they're having to give up their land and they're paying more for the rates and they're not actually getting any more electricity from it.

They're not getting any more reliability.

They're getting absolutely no benefit.

It's literally taking power into the Permian Basin.

So are the industrials or the large oil and gas companies or the people in the Permian Basin that are asking for more electricity paying more as well?

Yeah, they do pay for some of it.

They pay a lower share.

So residential consumers pay about half of all transmission costs.

And then industrial consumers are like a little about less than 30%.

So relative to how much they consume, they pay a lower rate.

Just kind of like how they pay lower rates in the wholesale market for electricity generally because they're bigger.

And historically, that makes sense because these are...

These big industrial loads are very flat.

They consume the same amount all the time.

So that's good for transmission.

Whereas residential consumers, we demand a lot at certain times and not a lot at others, depending on whether we're running air conditioning or not.

So the way that we've allocated costs makes sense in the past.

But now what we're doing, which is different from what's in the past, is we're building transmission systems.

specifically to connect wind and solar on one side of the state with large industrial loads on the other and not and not just like a west texas east texas i mean we're building solar all over the state right that's why this whole statewide plan is is goes everywhere not just west texas so That's, I think, the difference now is we're purpose building transmission for certain both generators and certain end users.

And those guys should be paying the full cost.

And it should not be socialized in the same way.

And we've made that point consistently now.

And there's a little bit of movement to do that as far as allocating some of the costs directly to the large loads, particularly the data centers and the commissions.

Well, and as you said that, you know, each of our households pricing is going to go up.

What about the industrials that are using it? Are they having to pay anymore? Are they paying for these extra transmission lines? Because what I'm hearing from not only users like me that aren't in the path, but the people that aren't in the that are in the path.

They're saying they're having to give up their land and they're paying more for the rates and they're not actually getting any more electricity from it.

They're not getting any more reliability.

They're getting absolutely no benefit.

It's literally taking power into the Permian Basin.

So are the industrials or the large oil and gas companies or the people in the Permian Basin that are asking for more electricity paying more as well?

Yeah, they do pay for some of it.

They pay a lower share.

So residential consumers pay about half of all transmission costs.

And then industrial consumers are like a little about less than 30%.

So relative to how much they consume, they pay a lower rate.

Just kind of like how they pay lower rates in the wholesale market for electricity generally because they're bigger.

And historically, that makes sense because these are...

These big industrial loads are very flat.

They consume the same amount all the time.

So that's good for transmission.

Whereas residential consumers, we demand a lot at certain times and not a lot at others, depending on whether we're running air conditioning or not.

So the way that we've allocated costs makes sense in the past.

But now what we're doing, which is different from what's in the past, is we're building transmission systems.

specifically to connect wind and solar on one side of the state with large industrial loads on the other and not and not just like a west texas east texas i mean we're building solar all over the state right that's why this whole statewide plan is is goes everywhere not just west texas so That's, I think, the difference now is we're purpose building transmission for certain both generators and certain end users.

And those guys should be paying the full cost.

And it should not be socialized in the same way.

And we've made that point consistently now.

And there's a little bit of movement to do that as far as allocating some of the costs directly to the large loads, particularly the data centers and the commissions.