HOUSTON – After widespread criticism over power outages during last year’s severe weather events, CenterPoint Energy says it has made major strides to improve resiliency and better serve customers this hurricane season.
In back-to-back blows last year, a derecho in May and Hurricane Beryl in August knocked out power for millions across the Houston area—many were left in the dark for days with no clear timeline for restoration.
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“Coming out of the Derecho and Beryl last year, we knew that our performance was not up to what our customers and communities expected of us,” said Keith Stephens, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at CenterPoint.
The outages led to public outcry and a formal review by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. At one hearing, a frustrated resident said, “It’s unforgivable that this is the best Texas has to offer in resiliency.”
In response, the company launched the Greater Houston Resiliency Plan last August. In less than nine months, officials say they’ve already completed work that was originally expected to take more than a year and a half.
“It was a tremendous undertaking, but we knew it was important to get it done,” a CenterPoint representative said during a recent press conference.
Among the upgrades:
- 25,000 new fiberglass power poles have been installed across the region. The material is built to withstand high wind speeds.
- 400 miles of power lines have been buried underground, and more than 4,500 automation devices—known as TripSavers—have been added to the system.
- Over 4,000 miles of vegetation have been cleared from around power lines.
“We absolutely know that we’re going to show up better for our customers on the infrastructure side,” Stephens added.
TripSaver devices are designed to detect temporary faults—like tree branches or small animals—and restore power without manual intervention.
“What this device will do is if, let’s say it’s a squirrel or a tree branch that causes a fault on the line, it will sense that it was just temporary and it will automatically re-energize that line,” a CenterPoint representative explained.
A New Forecasting Frontier
Another major development: CenterPoint now operates its own weather system. The utility has installed 100 industrial-grade weather stations throughout the region.
Meteorologist Matt Lanza, who manages CenterPoint’s meteorology team, demonstrated one of the stations located at Edloe Street and Westpark Drive in West University.
“This weather station is similar to what you would put in your backyard, but on a much more industrial strength scale,” Lanza said. “So, if you want to know what the temperature is, the humidity, the wind speed, the rainfall, this weather station is going to measure all that.”
Lanza says the real-time data helps the utility respond more effectively to changing weather patterns, especially during spring thunderstorms.
“Yeah, it helps us both in real time and then hopefully in terms of forecast because the more data you can put into a weather model, the better it’s generally going to perform,” he said. “We’ve already used it many times this spring to help thunderstorm conditions and response.”
More Storms Expected—But CenterPoint Says It’s Ready
With forecasters predicting an above-average hurricane season, CenterPoint leaders say their improvements are designed to restore customer confidence.
“We learned. We know that we had a long way to go to improve what our customers experienced last storm season,” said Tony Gardner, Vice President of Customer Service. “But we will not stop and will continue to work around the clock.”
New Communication Timeline for Outages
One of the biggest complaints from customers last year was the lack of communication during outages. CenterPoint says it’s launching a new plan to provide updates faster and with more precision:
- Within 24 hours after a storm clears the area, customers will get a global estimate for when 95% of power will be restored.
- By 48 hours, regional timelines will be released based on location.
- After 72 hours, customers will receive localized restoration times—specific to their neighborhood or home—through the Outage Tracker tool.
With upgraded infrastructure, enhanced forecasting tools, and a new communications plan, CenterPoint says it’s better equipped than ever to weather the storms ahead.