The Permian Gets Texas's First 765 kV Backbone, and CREZ Wrote the Playbook

ERCOT is spending $14 billion on 765 kV transmission into the Permian before the load arrives, running the same build-ahead playbook that CREZ proved a decade ago. With Q1 2026 connection requests hitting 438 GW, more than five times Texas's peak demand, the developers who read this signal early lock capacity while everyone else studies the queue.