HOUSTON – A day after CenterPoint Energy announced plans to withdraw its 2024 rate case filing with the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUC), the University of Houston’s vice president of energy and innovation says the move is helping the company’s appearance with consumers.
“Those costs have to be repaid,” said Ramana Krishnamoorti. “How we repay those is a matter of detail, but ultimately, it’s going to come back to the ratepayers.”
SEE ALSO: Major reversal: CenterPoint Energy won’t pass Hurricane Beryl costs onto customers
Krishnamoorti suggests the utility company will either get the funds through a state bailout or a rate increase issued later.
“A bailout by the state is, again, the taxpayers paying back for it, or you’re going to get, the rate increase at some point later on when it’s more palatable to the community,” he said. “There is no hiding behind this. There were real costs that were associated with having 12,000 people go there and address a very, very large challenge.”
WEIGH IN: How Houstonians can voice concerns to CenterPoint for ‘chaos and frustration’ during Hurricane Beryl
CEO Jason Wells admitted to Texas lawmakers on Monday that the company planned to pass on its costs for Hurricane Beryl by asking for a rate increase.
In a statement released by the company late Thursday, CenterPoint said the decision to withdraw the request for previous rate case, before Hurricane Beryl, was centered around rebuilding trust with the community and wanting to focus on improving resiliency around Houston as the hurricane season continues.
Krishnamoorti said CenterPoint needs to focus more on infrastructure but should begin with vegetation preventative care.
“There are multiple things that can be done. One is preventive maintenance, preventive maintenance through vegetation management. That’s a that’s an easy one to do that should be done. That I think is a problem that I don’t think we necessarily put enough infrastructure behind,” Krishnamoorti said. “The second one is actually to build redundancies in those transmission and distribution cables and wires. There are ways to do this. We know how to do it. I believe it’s a cost issue to deliver that. It can be done, but it will cost money and that cost will be transferred to the ratepayers.”
Thursday, Governor Greg Abbott said a plan CenterPoint submitted was inadequate.
The governor wanted information on six specific issues that came up during Hurricane Beryl, like vegetation management, having more resilient poles, and getting power back on more quickly for hospitals, nursing homes, or senior living facilities.
CenterPoint set August 15th as the deadline for many of the resolutions on communications and re-training call center agents, but the governor wants those issues addressed by next Friday.
In a meeting with CenterPoint leadership, according to a news release, Abbott directed the utility company to “develop a new, accelerated proposal that meets the Governor’s requirements to improve their severe weather preparation and response practices. The CenterPoint Energy executives agreed to immediately release the new proposal that incorporated the new directives made by Governor Abbott.
Krishnamoorti believes everyone deserves blame for CenterPoint’s response, from state to local leaders.
“The PUC is to be blamed. The state legislature is to be blamed. The state administrators, the city administrators, the county administrators were not voting in the appropriate checks and balances that ensured that a complex CenterPoint, a utility, was capable of delivering power as quickly as possible back after a natural disaster,” he said. “We need to keep holding all the people accountable. I think going after the CEO is simply a PR job to deflect and, to confuse, the broad public.”
KPRC 2 reached out to the PUC but haven’t yet heard back.
TAKE A DEEPER DIVE INTO RECENT STORIES ABOUT INVESTIGATIONS INTO CENTERPOINT’S RESPONSE TO HURRICANE BERYL OUTAGES: