Rayburn Electric Cooperative has broken ground on Rayburn Energy Station II, a new natural gas-fired generation facility in Sherman that is designed to enhance power reliability across North Texas. The project, valued at $685 million, will add 570 megawatts of firm, dispatchable capacity to the grid for the more than 625,000 Texans served by Rayburn’s four member cooperatives. The new plant is sited next to the existing Rayburn Energy Station I, creating a larger generation hub in one of the state’s fastest-growing regions.
Rayburn Energy Station II is being partially financed through the Texas Energy Fund, providing dedicated capital support for the development of new in-state generation. The additional capacity is intended to bolster reliability during periods of peak demand across the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system, where grid performance and resource adequacy remain closely watched by regulators, utilities, and large power users.
The facility will be powered by ten SGT-800 industrial gas turbines supplied by Siemens Energy, which will provide the core generation technology for the plant. Primoris Services Corporation has been engaged as the engineering, procurement, and construction partner, overseeing delivery of the project from design and equipment installation through completion. The construction phase is expected to generate approximately 250 jobs, offering a near-term employment boost to the surrounding area.
Commercial operations at Rayburn Energy Station II are planned for summer 2028, positioning the plant to help meet growing electricity demand in North Texas over the medium term. Once the new facility is completed and fully integrated with Rayburn Energy Station I, the combined complex will exceed 1,300 megawatts of generation capacity. That scale is intended to support both existing cooperative members and ongoing population and economic growth in the broader region.
For stakeholders focused on infrastructure and energy-adjacent real assets, the project underscores continued investment in dispatchable natural gas generation as part of Texas’s power mix. With public funding support through the Texas Energy Fund and a defined delivery timeline, Rayburn Energy Station II illustrates how cooperative utilities are adding capacity while seeking to manage reliability concerns in a dynamic ERCOT market.
