Adrian Rodriguez, the new president of AEP Texas, testified before the Texas Senate Committee on Business & Commerce at the State Capitol in Austin in late July, 2026.

Addressing state lawmakers, Rodriguez emphasized that rapid economic development across AEP Texas's 97,000-square-mile service territory in South and West Texas is pushing existing transmission infrastructure to capacity.

"It's not just the Permian Basin that is experiencing growth," Rodriguez testified before the Senate committee. "In our own service territory for AEP Texas... we're experiencing extraordinary growth. We have coastal refineries that are expanding, in the Rio Grande Valley we have liquefied natural gas terminals that are in progress, there's significant growth in and around Laredo... Altogether, those projects... traditional Texas business, is what is driving the need for these transmission lines."

Rodriguez highlighted major infrastructure undertakings currently underway, including the Howard to Solstice Transmission Line project developed in partnership with San Antonio-based CPS Energy, and discussed industry efforts to deploy high-capacity 765 kV transmission lines.

"Our sister companies have worked with 765 kV transmission lines since 1969, and there's already thousands of miles of it in other states," Rodriguez testified. "Primary because of the fact that we can move so much power on it and impacting fewer landowners than we would have otherwise if we had tried to transmit the same amount of power on equivalent 345 kV transmission lines."

Rodriguez stressed that delays in regulatory approval and Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) applications risk exacerbating supply chain bottlenecks for critical electrical components.

"Transmission is not built for its own sake... We can't have generation without transmission," Rodriguez stated, reassuring lawmakers and landowners that utility companies are engaging communities early through open houses well ahead of formal CCN filings. "Our goal is to make sure that we have the necessary infrastructure available for our customers."

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