Ariel Worthy
In a letter sent to representatives on Wednesday, CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason P. Wells presented a plan to forgo more than half of the estimated profits the company made from the lease of mobile generators and invest $5 billion over the next 10 years to improve resiliency.
The letter was sent to Senator Charles Schwertner, the chairman of the Special Committee on Hurricane and Tropical Storm Preparedness, Recovery and Electricity, and District 32 Representative Todd Hunter, the chairman of the Committee on State Affairs. The letter acknowledges the “frustrations” voiced by customers and officials following Hurricane Beryl when over 2 million Houstonians lost power.
“Our response to Hurricane Beryl, and the many frustrations we heard from our customers and elected officials, has inspired a company-wide call to action,” Wells said in the opening paragraphs of the letter. “We have committed ourselves to an unprecedented level of action to be the most admired utility in the country by investing in modernizing and making our grid more resilient for the future.”
Part of the company’s proposed remedies included a three-part plan to repair and upgrade the grid by doubling its reliability investment to $5 billion.
RELATED: CenterPoint aims to push cost of repairing Hurricane Beryl’s damage onto Houston-area ratepayers
According to Centerpoint, the first part of the plan, titled Immediate Actions, is already nearing completion with 39 of the 42 commitments having been fulfilled already. Some of the largest goals included trimming and removing approximately 2,000 miles of vegetation around powerlines, installing over 300 automation devices and constructing more than 1,000 stronger composite poles, according to the letter.
The next phase of the proposed plan is set to begin in September and end on June 1, 2025, Wells said.
“The next phase of our resiliency actions will focus on further strengthening and enhancing key areas of our operations in preparation for winter and before the Hurricane 2025 season,” he said. “The actions we will take include system hardening, advanced automation, predictive modeling and further actions to improve our preparedness and communications.”
The letter also specifies that an independent third party would review the work done by the company.
RELATED: Houston-area residents give CenterPoint an earful at post-Beryl open house
The final “Long-Term Strategy” would last from 2026 to 2028 and has the ambitious goal of building “the most resilient coastal grid in the country.” The details of this plan are expected to be filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas before the end of January 2025.
As another gesture to residents and lawmakers, CenterPoint said it would also forgo $110 million in estimated profits from its lease of mobile generators, which the company had leased for more than $800 million but failed to use during the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.
In a statement to Houston Public Media, Schwertner said it was a step in the right direction but might not be enough.
“I appreciate CenterPoint’s movement in becoming a better partner to their ratepayers and to Texas,” he said. “However, they have yet to hit that mark.”