As you can imagine, an influx of drilling in South Texas has meant an influx of new businesses and people. Businesses and people both consume electricity.

The pace of electrical capacity expansion in some oilfield areas has increased to 10-times more than it was in the three year period before the oilfield boom kicked off.

The electrical industry is facing hurdles of its own. It is not cheap to build out distribution in what was once sparsely populated areas. Utilities have to compete for people with other South Texas oilfield jobs. That makes it difficult to find and keep qualified people.

Also, land owners demand premium prices for right-of-way and electrical companies prefer not to use eminent domain. Instead, they pay a little more and avoid the legal process.

“You can just see the exponential growth in the transformer infrastructure and capacity,” said Robert Knowles with AEP Texas.

Read more in regard to electrical demand in rural oil areas at mysa.com