Texas built its electricity market to react quickly to changes in demand, attract private capital, and protect ratepayers from private-sector investment risk.

A wave of large load interconnection requests is testing that model.

In this conversation, Katie Coleman, a leading Texas energy lawyer and partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, describes the pressure points facing the ERCOT grid. Officials are scrambling to determine which loads are real, how quickly they will arrive, and how the state should build transmission and other infrastructure to support them.

Coleman brings ERCOT’s challenge into focus. She explains how customers behave differently — signing different contracts, facing different operating constraints, and placing different demands on the system — and grid managers have to juggle those variables.

She also walks through a basic divide in the Texas market between generation and transmission. Private investors assume the risk of building generation. But with transmission, regulated utilities must get permission from the PUC to build power lines and then charge consumers for them (plus profit margin) over time.

As interconnection requests climb and forecasts shift, these infrastructure decisions will become increasingly important — for the ERCOT grid and Texans’ power bills.

The episode explores a range of issues, including:

* How ERCOT and policymakers should judge new load forecasts.

* Why transmission planning is a central constraint.

* How Texas can preserve market discipline while serving growth.

Coleman also points to the importance of regulatory stability. As large customers, generators, and utilities make long-term decisions about growth and investment, they need an energy market they can read.

That predictability becomes even more crucial, Coleman says, as Texas debates how to respond to unprecedented demand growth.'

Energy Capital Podcast is produced by ClarityForge Studios.

Timestamps

* 00:00 - Introduction & Katie Coleman

* 01:05 - Katie’s Energy Origin Story

* 04:01 - Why She Represents Industrials

* 05:55 - What Large Power Users Want

* 08:56 - Speed to Power in Texas

* 10:57 - How Industrial Demand Response Works

* 17:04 - Crypto, Data Centers, and Misperceptions

* 20:43 - How the Energy-Only Market Works

* 28:27 - Load Forecasts and Transmission Risk

* 36:46 - Bringing Generation With New Load

* 38:49 - Why Texas Needs Stability

* 40:32 - Final Reflections & Close

Resources

People & Organizations

* Matt Boms (LinkedIn)

* Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (Website - LinkedIn)

* Energy Capital Podcast (LinkedIn - YouTube)

* Katie Coleman (LinkedIn)

* O’Melveny & Myers LLP (Website - LinkedIn)

Related Podcasts by Texas Energy & Power

* Who Pays for Texas Grid Growth? - Roundtable Discussion

* More Power That’s Faster and Fairer

* Where the Grid Goes from Here | Reading and Podcast Picks - Feb. 4, 2026

* Another Winter Storm Bears Down on Texas | Reading and Podcast Picks - Jan. 23, 2026

Transcript

Matt Boms (00:05.198)

Today, I’m really excited to be joined by Katie Coleman, managing partner of the Austin office at Olmelvney and Myers. Katie is one of the leading energy regulatory attorneys in Texas. She has more than 15 years of experience representing large industrial energy customers in ERCOT and before the Public Utility Commission of Texas. She’s best known for her work representing groups like the Texas Industrial Energy Consumers, TIEC, and the Texas Association of Manufacturers, TAM.

helping shape some of the most important conversations around energy markets and policy in the state. Katie has also been deeply involved in the industry more broadly. She served as president of the Gulf Coast Power Association, and she previously led the state bar of Texas public utility law section. And across the energy community in Texas, she’s widely respected as one of the very best regulatory lawyers in our business. So Katie, thank you so much for making time for us, and thanks for joining the podcast today.

Katie Coleman (01:03.726)

Absolutely glad to be here.

Matt Boms (01:05.558)

I wanted to start with a layup and I wanted to ask you to just walk us through how you first got into energy. Like what is your origin story and how did you end up in this business?

Katie Coleman (01:15.182)

Yes, so I have no qualifications. I have no business doing this job that I’ve now been doing. My bio actually, I need to update it. This is actually the 20th year when I first started in the industry, which I count as when I clerked when I was in law school, which then turned into a permanent job. I spent the summer doing this, finished law school, and then came back in 2006. So it’s been 20 years now.

I went to UT undergrad. I was a liberal arts major. I did a small honors program at UT called Plan To, which people at UT are familiar with, but a lot of other people aren’t. But it is just an interdisciplinary liberal arts honors program. So I had no idea what I was going to do. And I did that very cliched thing where I took the LSAT to see how I did and then ended up in law school. Even in law school, I had no idea that I was going to end up in this field.

So I’m not from Texas. I’m actually from outside of Asheville in North Carolina. And Austin felt like a huge city to me when I was in school here. And in law school, I looked at jobs in Houston. I looked at jobs in Dallas. I actually split my summer in Austin and Dallas. And Dallas just felt unmanageable for me being from a very small mountain town. And so I really focused on Austin. And obviously there’s a big regulatory workforce here.

in Austin with the capital and all the state agencies. And so the firm that I clerked with, which was at the time Andrews Kerr, this was a big part of the work they did. So I tried several different sections and really liked the policy aspect of the energy practice. And the partner that originally hired me, I think took me around and met some of the clients, met some of the stakeholders that we were going to interact with regularly. And it seemed like a good fit. So he,

hired me on a little bit of a whim. And here we are. I feel really lucky. It’s been a really good fit and I’ve really enjoyed it, especially all of the people that we work with, I think make this a really unique, special industry. And I think that’s what I picked up on when I was looking at options. And so I’ve kind of learned it as we’ve gone and I’ve had great mentors that are very credentialed and do know a lot of things about power markets and

Katie Coleman (03:36.706)

just industrials in general that have taught me everything I know along the way. So that’s really been key.

Matt Boms (03:42.978)

That’s awesome. And when you say 20 years, I’m sure it probably feels like where did those 20 years go? Cause the time goes by so quickly.

Katie Coleman (03:49.806)

You know, it felt like that for a while and then in 2021 it stopped feeling like that. From 2021 until now it feels like it’s been like another 20 years.

Matt Boms (04:01.036)

Yeah, well, I guess the last part of the origin story is like, did you come to represent the large industrial customers? Like, how did the door open for you and how did you take that path?

Katie Coleman (04:10.296)

So I inherited it, is the short story. The group of attorneys that I started my career with, who I still work with, have a legacy that goes all the way back to the original adoption of the Public Utility Regulatory Act, and back in the 70s. And at that time, there was a lawyer in Houston, he was at a different firm, Mayor Day Caldwell and Keaton at the time. Jonathan Day was involved in writing Pura.

along with some other attorneys. And when the bill passed, they sort of divided up, you know, who was going to take which sector of the industry, who was going to work with the utilities. And Jonathan in Houston, with the Ship Channel and with strong industrial relationships, decided he was going to represent the industrial users. And so he then trained another attorney who then trained another attorney who then trained me. A...