Linda Ball and other energy officials told San Antonio’s Municipal Public Services Committee that rapid load growth, large interconnection requests and the retirement of older generation are increasing pressure on transmission planning and prompting large transmission investments that will affect the CPS Energy service territory.

Ball, introduced on the record during the committee meeting, said regional forecasts show sustained growth: the system is projected to grow about 3 percent per year over the next 10 years and planners are seeing thousands of megawatts of new interconnection activity. Ball said active generation interconnection requests in the queue total about 346 gigawatts (as stated in the presentation) and cited a 2024 figure of roughly 5,800 megawatts of new additions in that year. She told committee members that regional planning and a pending corridor study will consider very high‑voltage lines (for example, 345 kilovolts) to move more electricity across the state.

Why it matters: Committee members pressed officials on local impacts — where new lines and substations would be sited, how property acquisitions would be handled, and how costs would be allocated to customers. Ball and other presenters said the siting process will include public outreach and coordination with city planning, and that costs for transmission are socialized across ERCOT service areas based on load share. For San Antonio, Ball said the city’s share is roughly 6–7 percent of the costs assigned to the region.

Officials highlighted several regional reliability and market issues. Ball described ERCOT authority and tools, including the option to use Reliability‑Must‑Run (RMR) contracts to keep specific units online for reliability during the near term. She said some thermal units have reached end‑of‑life and are being retired, creating the need to replace capacity both at generation and transmission levels. Committee members asked how the market and potential legislation might affect large customers such as hyperscale data centers.

Data centers and large customers: Councilmembers repeatedly raised data centers and other large loads. Ball and staff said large data‑center projects have unusually high, concentrated demand and are arriving in waves; they noted a planning projection of about 6,000 megawatts of load associated with large customers in the planning horizon discussed. Officials said some types of large loads (for example, certain cryptocurrency mining or specialized compute) have different load shapes than typical industrial or residential customers, which complicates integration and cost allocation. Staff said they are working to ensure growth pays its share of system costs through planning, interconnection studies and commercial arrangements.

Land acquisition and public outreach: Committee members asked whether residents near proposed lines or substations would face direct property impacts. Officials said the utility tries to be strategic about siting, uses public engagement processes for projects inside city limits, and coordinates with city planning. They emphasized outreach and information for affected neighborhoods but noted that specific siting and property impacts depend on future project decisions.

Costs and who pays: Officials described transmission costs in ERCOT as socialized among load zones and said individual customers or new large customers generally pay their portion of transmission and interconnection costs rather than being subsidized by existing customers. Ball said transmission costs are allocated through established ERCOT processes and that CPS Energy pays its share based on its load proportion.

Outstanding details and limits: The presentation and Q&A included multiple numeric forecasts and program references; in some places the transcript and slides contained inconsistent or unclear numeric labels (for example, an earlier slide cited a large number expressed as “152000 gigawatt” in the presentation text). Committee members and presenters repeatedly returned to clarifying projections, local siting coordination, and timing for the corridor study. Officials did not present a finalized siting plan or schedule for property acquisitions; they described the corridor study and several regional projects in planning as the next steps.

The committee also heard about a broader regional investment need; Ball estimated roughly $1.4 billion in regional transmission spending over the next five years tied to the planning scenarios presented. Officials said detailed scopes, schedules and property impacts will be defined in subsequent planning steps and public outreach phases.

Ending: Committee members thanked staff for the update and continued a series of follow‑up questions about data centers, local planning coordination and customer protections; staff said they would continue to work with city planning and return with more detail as projects proceed.