Vic Kolenc has written an article for the El Paso Times headlined ‘An international issue’ | El Paso Electric substation construction boom aimed at big-energy needs.
Right now the story is behind ElPasoTimes.com’s paywall, but maybe I’ll link to it after it escapes, unless I get distracted.
El Paso Electric is in the midst of an electric substation construction boom to meet the rapid residential and commercial growth on the city’s outskirts, particularly to meet the huge energy demands of new industrial projects.
The El Paso area likely missed out on getting some big industrial projects in recent years because the needed electricity infrastructure was not in place.
The company’s latest system expansion plan involves the construction of 28 new substations over a seven-year period, at an estimated cost of about $504 million.
. . .
“The economic growth and boom that our local economy and community are seeing are driving us to keep pace with that, and we are building more substations than we have in the past,” [EPE’s vice president of energy delivery Omar] Gallegos said.
“We want to make sure we don’t miss this opportunity for El Paso and the community for this economic development.”
Customers eventually help pay for these projects through rate charges. The utility is currently involved in a rate case with the Public Utility Commission or Texas and the city of El Paso, in which it is seeking a 23% increase in the average residential bill to help pay for past projects.
In a different story in today’s paper, Adam Powell reports that the rate case that El Paso Electric is currently pursuing “would see the average customer paying an additional $22.39 a month . . . .”
There’s a little bit to unpack from those few paragraphs I lifted from Mr. Kolenc’s article. Let me dive in.
Here’s the deal. El Paso Electric gets to charge its customers for any improvements it makes to its infrastructure. So EPE will make bank from that $504 million it’s investing in our “economic development”. I don’t expect that the utility’s investments will trickle down to most of its customers except in the form of higher rates.
And how about Mr. Kolenc’s assertion that “[t]he El Paso area likely missed out on getting some big industrial projects in recent years because the needed electricity infrastructure was not in place.”
It’s unusual for a reporter to make a claim like that without any evidence to support it. Is that Mr. Kolenc’s expert opinion, or is he just talking out his ass?
There is no evidence offered that El Paso missed out on some big industrial projects. If companies that need a lot of electricity passed on El Paso, they probably set up shop in places that had lower electricity rates.
And economic development is great, but I’ve noticed that whenever someone wants to justify some big expensive project, they trot out the economic development argument.
Why don’t any of our big bureaucracies try to take care of the people that are here, instead of setting the table for guests that might or might not show?
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