Podcast: Utilities Scaling up in the Permian with James Lackey and Beth Garza

In this episode of the Energy Perspectives Podcast, recorded on-site at Permian Energy Dialogues in 2025, we dive into the operational reality utilities face as power demand accelerates across the Permian Basin.

Join Beth Garza, energy policy advisor and former ERCOT leader, as she moderates a timely conversation with James Lackey, Director of Customer Relations at Xcel Energy. Together, they explore what it takes to plan, permit, and build electric infrastructure in a region experiencing some of the fastest load growth in North America.

In this conversation, they unpack:

-What it means for a utility system to potentially double in size within a few years
-How oil and gas electrification is driving multi-gigawatt demand growth
-Why customers are already facing multi-year delays for new service
-The rise of self-generation and microgrids as a response to grid constraints
-How misaligned generation and transmission approval processes slow infrastructure delivery

With grounded insights from the front lines of utility planning, this episode captures how infrastructure bottlenecks and regulatory sequencing challenges are shaping real-world decisions across the Permian energy system.