CenterPoint had officially announced the submission of its enhanced Systemwide Resiliency Plan (SRP), which is designed to reduce the impact of storm-related outages by over 1.3 billion minutes for its 2.8 million customers into 2029.
According to certain reports, once realized, the stated plan will make for the largest single grid resiliency investment in all of CenterPoint’s history. More on that would reveal how it is going to build on what was achieved during the first two phases of the company’s Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative.
The plan will address, in essence, 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.
Markedly enough, the submitted SRP is understood to accommodate important feedback from customers, elected leaders, emergency management agencies, and independent experts. You see, over the last three months, CenterPoint has conducted 30 meetings and listening sessions to reach upon various key points of its plan.
Another detail worth a mention here is rooted in how, in line with CenterPoint’s affordability goals, this effort should be able to provide the greatest dollar value to customers now and in the future. This it will achieve by prioritizing proven, cost-effective resiliency actions at every touchpoint.
Taking a deeper view of all the things that CenterPoint’s SRP will try and achieve, we begin from its promise to automate devices. You see, upon implementation, the stated plan will ensure that 100% of lines serving have specialized automation devices, capable of self-healing to reduce the impact of outages.
Next up, the SRP will look to secure substations. Here, the aim is to raise 99% of substations above the 500-year flood plain. CenterPoint’s effort will also have a focus on undergrounding, as it hopes to underground more than 50% of CenterPoint’s system to improve resilience against weather-caused risks.
Then, there is objective of building stronger distribution poles. CenterPoint basically has an intention to install, replace, or brace an estimated 130,000 stronger, more storm-resilient poles (rated to 110 mph and 132 mph), thus enhancing its infrastructure’s defensibility against weather storms.
The SRP in question will also facilitate effective vegetation management. Here, the idea is to deploy an industry-leading, three-year vegetation management cycle for transmission and distribution lines. Making this all the better is a fact that 100% of these power lines are cleared from hazardous vegetation every three years.
Among other things, there is a pledge to setup stronger transmission towers. CenterPoint will build or upgrade, in total, more than 2,200 transmission structures to withstand extreme weather, while simultaneously improving overall reliability.
We can also expect to see modernized cables. The company is going to modernize 34,500 spans of underground cables, all for cutting down on frequency and impact associated with outages.
All in all, these improvements, when packaged with other planned actions and measures announced earlier in the week as part of CenterPoint’s 2024-2029 rate case, should tread up a long distance to strengthen overall resiliency and reliability of Greater Houston-area electric system by at least 30% over a three-year period, according to Guidehouse, an independent third-party expert.
This translates to avoiding outages for more than 500,000 customers in the event of another Hurricane Beryl-like storm, and at the same time, improving restoration and response times during such events. In case that wasn’t enough, SRP is also expected to save customers a projected cost of approximately $50 million in storm-related costs per year.
“The residents of Greater Houston area expect and deserve an electric system that is safe, reliable, cost-effective and resilient when they need it most. We’re determined to deliver just that. Our Systemwide Resiliency Plan represents an historic investment and is a major step on our strategic roadmap to becoming the most resilient coastal grid in the country. The array of resiliency actions will provide customers with clear benefits now and in the future and will build on the progress we’ve already made to date through the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative,” said Jason Wells, President and Chief Executive Officer, CenterPoint Energy.
