HOUSTON – CenterPoint Energy is being investigated by the state and also answering to the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) for its response to the historic number of power outages in the Houston area from Hurricane Beryl.
And now the Houston-area residents and businesses will get to weigh in on the company’s performance.
The PUC has developed an online survey as part of its investigation into CenterPoint’s readiness and response. You can find that survey by clicking here.
“I want to announce that staff is in the process of developing an online portal, to invite public comment from residents and businesses in the Houston area. That will be live in the next couple of weeks so that folks can, go online, sort of fill out an online form to share their experiences and perspectives with staff for the investigation,” said PUC Deputy Director Connie Corona.
More than 2.6 million customers lost power during Beryl and some went without for eleven days.
Thirty-six people died during that time, many of those deaths were heat-related with people who did not have power and no air conditioning.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE PUC HEARING
- Reliability: CenterPoint says it’s launching a new outage tracker by August 1. This one will be cloud-based and the company says it won’t be vulnerable to crashes which is what happened during the derecho in May when more than 900,000 customers lost power.
- Communication: CenterPoint’s top executives told the PUC they’ll increase Call Center capacity by 165% during storm events. Customers should not have to wait more than 5 minutes to talk with a human. This new practice goes into effect August 5.
- Communication and transparency: CenterPoint says during named storm events, they will set up daily press briefings before and during those storms. That starts August 1.