AUSTIN, Texas – The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) has released its report on CenterPoint Energy’s response to Hurricane Beryl.
The report highlights fixes for the company as well as recommendations for what lawmakers and the commission itself can do to prepare for future severe weather events.
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Gov. Greg Abbott had instructed the PUC to deliver a report by Dec. 1. The PUC completed the report on Nov. 19.
The investigation and report had two main goals:
1. Determine how well utilities in the Greater Houston area were prepared for and responded to severe weather events, especially the power outages after the May 2024 derecho and Hurricane Beryl.
2. Develop recommendations for utilities and the Legislature to reduce the length and impact of power outages after following future storms and recommend possible changes to Commission rules.
One of the major issues the report found with CenterPoint’s response was communication with customers and other utilities.
The report calls on utilities to include neighboring utilities, local governments, and emergency services in annual hurricane and major storm drills. It also calls on utilities to incorporate outage tracker disruptions and high user demand as scenarios in annual hurricane and major storm drills, citing the problems with CenterPoint’s outage tracker.
For the PUC itself, the report says the commission should require pre-storm communication procedures in emergency operations plans.
The report also says the Texas Legislature should codify a customer’s right to information about restoration times and the right to contact an electric service provider by phone.
The 74-page report goes into more specific details as to how utilities, the PUC and the Texas Legislature should move to fix current issues and prepare for future storms. These issues are divided into several categories:
- Emergency preparedness and response planning
- Communication and coordination
- Customer restoration workflow
- Physical infrastructure
- Vegetation management
- Staffing and mutual assistance
- Mobile generation facilities
You can read the PUC’s full report below: