CenterPoint Energy response to Houston Chronicle Sept. 11 article

CenterPoint Energy response to Houston Chronicle Sept. 11 article

Wednesday-September-11-2024

​Houston - Sept. 11, 2024 - See the full company statement that was provided to the Houston Chronicle:

The ongoing risk posed by a lack of generation and the threat of load shed that occurred after the impacts of Winter Storm Uri, along with the billions of dollars of loss that could ensue in similar situations, represented an ongoing and serious threat to CenterPoint Energy's customers and Texas' energy future. This demanded action.

As was litigated in multiple PUCT hearings in 2022 and 2023 and was publicly addressed in multiple public hearings this year, CenterPoint's leasing of large-scale emergency generation units was approved following a thorough review and competitive bidding process, and was driven by our goal to be in full compliance with the changes in Texas law following the devastating impacts of Winter Storm Uri.

In fact, the stated purpose of these large-scale temporary emergency generators was to help supplement available generation during a load shed event and meet the PUCT's requirement to rotate power. To be clear, this threat continues to exist. Since March 2021, there were more than 115 instances when ERCOT issued a notice of tight conditions, including seven instances when they alerted us to prepare for load shed, because the state's generators were at risk of not producing sufficient energy supply to meet customer demand. CenterPoint has a responsibility to address these issues and to help protect our customers from the failures of generation. We cannot, in good conscious, ignore this threat. If our elected officials and regulators believe this threat of load shed has diminished since Winter Storm Uri, we remain, as we have stated in numerous filings and hearings, committed to evaluating the future role of large-scale temporary emergency generation.