CenterPoint Energy Reaches Settlement Agreement with Parties on 2026-2028 Systemwide Resiliency Plan

CenterPoint Energy (CenterPoint) has reached a settlement agreement with parties to its 2026-2028 Systemwide Resiliency Plan (SRP).

Depending on review and approval of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), the SRP represents a single grid resiliency investment from CenterPoint and is expected to reduce the impact of storm-related outages by nearly 1 billion (more than 913 million minutes) for its 2.8 million customers by 2029.

CenterPoint's 2026-2028 SRP will build on the progress made during the first two phases of the company's Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI) and is designed to address the impacts of a wide range of extreme weather threats, including more powerful storms, hurricanes, wind events like derechos, flooding, extreme temperatures, tornadoes, wildfires and winter storms.

The settlement agreement highlights discussions with intervening parties following the filing of CenterPoint's enhanced SRP with the PUCT in January 2025. It includes a revised, agreed-upon investment of more than $3 billion in CenterPoint's electric distribution system.

The agreement also includes the deferment of more than $240 million in SRP costs until the second half of 2029, which will help reduce the bill impact for customers by spreading costs over a four-year period instead of three years. Once approved, and while some cost recovery will be deferred into 2029, all SRP work is scheduled to be completed in the proposed 2026-2028 timeframe.

CenterPoint will continue its nearly $2 billion investments planned for the electric transmission system, including rebuilding or upgrading more than 2,200 structures to better withstand extreme weather.

Pending approval from the PUCT, CenterPoint's SRP investment in the electric distribution system will add approximately $1.40 per month for an average residential customer each year from 2026 through 2028, with a final $0.60 per month added in 2030 to help reduce bill impacts in previous years.

The impacts of these investment in Greater Houston's electric infrastructure are reduced over the next three years, other key components of the average residential customer bill will go down during the same period including:

• Costs associated with the large temporary emergency generation units will start coming out of rates for Houston Electric customers in summer 2025, and by 2027, bills will be reduced by an estimated $2 per month for the average customer.
• As a result of the recently settled, four-year Houston Electric rate case, CenterPoint will receive approximately $50 million less revenue annually which means a reduction in electric customer bills by about $1 a month for most customers from 2025 through 2028 while also continuing to deliver support for local economic growth and upgrades across Greater Houston area.

The investments outlined in CenterPoint's SRP are designed to benefit customers across the entire 12-county service area, with a focus on customers in higher-risk areas. The array of resiliency actions, combined with CenterPoint's normal operations, will achieve the following upon completion:

• Automation Devices: 100% of lines serving the most customers will include automation devices capable of self-healing to reduce the impact of outages;
• Stronger Distribution Poles: 130,000 stronger, more storm-resilient poles (rated to 110 mph and 132 mph) will be either installed new or replaced or braced to withstand stronger storms;
• Vegetation Management: CenterPoint will deploy an industry-leading, three-year vegetation management cycle for transmission and distribution lines, with 100% of power lines cleared of hazardous vegetation every three years;
• Undergrounding: More than 50% of CenterPoint's system will be undergrounded to improve resiliency; and
• Modernized Cables: 20,150 spans of underground cables will be modernized to reduce the frequency and impact of outages.

The resiliency actions outlined by the SRP will also help meet the energy needs of the growing population across CenterPoint's Greater Houston service area. The number of customers is expected to continue to grow by about 2% annually for the foreseeable future, equivalent of adding a city the size of Waco, Texas, every year.

CenterPoint's SRP will help address the increasing risk faced by Greater Houston from extreme weather. As part of CenterPoint's commitment to long-term affordability, the SRP is designed to provide the greatest dollar value to customers now and in the future by prioritizing proven, cost-effective resiliency actions that will prove vital to reducing future storm-related costs for the CenterPoint communities.

Since launching GHRI in response to Hurricane Beryl in summer 2024, CenterPoint has made progress on the series of resiliency improvements across both Phase One and Phase Two. When combined, the company has completed the following actions:

• Installed or replaced more than 26,000 stronger, more storm-resilient poles built to withstand extreme winds;
• Undergrounded more than 400 miles of power lines to improve overall resiliency;
• Installed more than 5,150 more automated reliability devices and intelligent grid switching devices to reduce the impact of outages and improve restoration times;
• Cleared more than 6,000 miles of higher-risk vegetation near power lines to reduce storm-related outages; and
• Installed 100 weather monitoring stations to improve situational awareness and storm preparation.