Texas Governor Greg Abbott is urging CenterPoint Energy to speed up its preparations to prevent another widespread power outage.
Governor Abbott had a lengthy meeting with CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells to discuss how the utility company plans to handle future disasters.
CenterPoint is now accelerating efforts like tree removal and utility pole replacements to better prepare for hurricanes.
As part of this new plan, CenterPoint has committed to several key actions:
- Vegetation Management: CenterPoint will clear vegetation from 2,000 miles of power lines by August 31, instead of the original end-of-year deadline. They have doubled their vegetation management crew to 1,000 workers.
- Utility Pole Replacement: About 1,000 utility poles will be replaced by August 31, moved up from the previous deadline of December 31.
- Distribution Line Hardening: CenterPoint will “harden” nearly 350 miles of distribution lines to withstand extreme winds by the end of the year.
- Outage Tracker: A new outage tracker was launched on August 1 to keep customers informed about power outages.
- Power Restoration Estimates: CenterPoint will now provide all customers with an estimated time for power restoration within 24 hours of a storm.
These measures come after Hurricane Beryl hit the Houston area on July 8, causing millions to experience power outages that lasted days or even weeks.
According to the source, Governor Abbott emphasized the need for CenterPoint to exceed its initial proposals and complete these tasks faster.
In a statement, the governor’s office said, “The governor stressed that CenterPoint Energy’s proposal was inadequate and instructed them that more must be done and it must be completed faster than originally proposed.”
Governor Abbott also reinforced the importance of meeting all his directives before the next tropical storm season.
CenterPoint’s recent actions follow the company’s withdrawal of a proposal to raise customer rates, which faced strong public opposition.
Additionally, CEO Jason Wells refused to resign during a contentious meeting with Texas lawmakers over the company’s performance during recent storms.
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In a letter to Governor Abbott on July 24, Wells wrote:
“While we cannot erase the frustrations and difficulty so many of our customers endured, I, and my entire leadership team, will not make any excuses. We will improve. We will act with a sense of urgency. Already we are taking a series of immediate actions to further enhance the resiliency of our system, improve the coordination of our emergency response, accelerate the pace of our restoration, and increase the overall effectiveness of our customer communications.”