In this episode of the Energy Perspectives Podcast, recorded on-site at Permian Energy Dialogues in 2025, Beth Garza sits down with James Lackey, Director of Customer Relations at Xcel Energy, to examine how utilities are responding to unprecedented load growth in the Permian Basin.

As electrification accelerates across oil and gas operations and broader industrial demand continues to rise, utilities are confronting system expansion timelines that strain traditional planning, permitting, and regulatory processes. Lackey outlines what it means to plan for a system that could double in size within a few years, while still maintaining reliability and affordability for customers.

From multi-gigawatt demand projections to customers waiting years for service, this conversation captures how infrastructure bottlenecks and regulatory sequencing challenges are already shaping investment decisions, customer behavior, and grid economics across the region.

Key Themes:

• Rapid system growth and compressed planning timelines

• Multi-gigawatt load driven by oil and gas electrification

• Interconnection delays and near-term economic impacts

• Customer self-generation and microgrid adoption

• Misalignment between generation and transmission approval processes

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