After Hurricane Beryl laid a path of destruction through the greater Houston area, the storm’s impact on the local power grid is having an outsized effect on the ongoing debate about the future of Texas’ energy and electrical infrastructure. The lessons we take from this incident, which left 2.5 million people without power at the height of the storm, can help determine if we are going to continue to invest properly in one of the fundamental building blocks of the American economy—the power grid. We must seize the opportunity.
Texas families, businesses, and consumers are accustomed to a steady supply of affordable and reliable energy, as residents of a state that has helped lead the nation in providing energy and environmental stewardship. Given that Beryl struck less than two months after derecho winds knocked power out for 1 million people in late May, questions are being asked about the readiness, responsiveness, and communication efforts of CenterPoint Energy. These are legitimate questions, and the answers should be used to improve performance ahead of the next big storm.
Like all utilities facing severe weather, CenterPoint readied significant resources inside and outside Texas to respond to Beryl. The storm readiness helped the company make a dent in resolving many outages in the first few days, but overcoming the impact of more than 18,000 trees falling onto power lines has challenged crews who are still cascading into the hardest-hit areas to restore power for every customer. However, history has shown that it is not unusual for the last 5% to 10% of restorations to take longer after such a massive storm-caused outage, since they usually involve the most complicated situations and remote locations.
The bigger, more important questions for policymakers are how we can do better, and whether we are doing the right things now to keep our energy infrastructure resilient and reliable in the future. Electric utilities face a constant push and pull when it comes to the economics of delivering power. Customers, politicians, and others want to keep rates low to minimize customer discontent. Regulators have a difficult job balancing the need for investments while keeping rates affordable.
Reliability and resilience in the wake of storm damage is the most pressing issue of this moment. While damage and outages have always been a fact of life in areas prone to tropical storms and hurricanes, the massive growth of population and infrastructure—from roads to homes to commercial and industrial buildings—over the last 50 years means that much more is affected every time a storm lands hard.
Utilities should be continually seeking to improve storm resilience, including improving and hardening transmission and distribution infrastructure, weather-proofing generation facilities, and ensuring trees and vegetation are properly controlled. Our shared expectations going forward should be greater resiliency and an absence of power outages.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has given CenterPoint a deadline of July 31 to provide his office with “specific actions to address power outages and reduce the possibility that power will be lost during a severe weather event.” It will be important for CenterPoint to identify where it can improve resilience and reliability, even if it means increasing customer costs. CenterPoint is rightly proud of its ability to keep rates contained over the last decade, but if investment is required to strengthen the grid against severe weather, CenterPoint should be ready to explain the costs and benefits to policymakers and customers.
CenterPoint should also take the opportunity to revisit and emphasize its request for funding from the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program, a $10.5 billion fund created by the Biden administration. In 2023, the company applied for $100 million “to fund high wind and flood mitigation projects,” precisely the kind of damage done by Beryl. It’s unclear why the Department of Energy (DOE) rejected the request, according to a published report in which the DOE did not respond to questions. The company has resubmitted its application, and the Abbott administration should impress on DOE the importance of these funds for improving Houston’s grid, especially given the region’s outsized importance in the nation’s energy industry, which affects the entire American economy.
Beryl is not the first big storm to hit Texas and certainly won’t be the last. The focus right now is correctly on getting power back for the last customers. The line workers who have come from all over the country deserve our thanks for working through difficult conditions including facing violence from residents to get the lights back on. How we learn from this event, and improve our grid to better withstand future storms, must be our next priority.
—David Holt is the president of Consumer Energy Alliance, an energy and environmental advocate for families and businesses.
