CenterPoint President and CEO Jason Wells addresses the Public Utilities Commission at a hearing in Austin on July 25, 2024. The energy company proposed action plans for improved customer communication and restoring power quickly in future outages.
CenterPoint officials during the meeting repeatedly committed to make changes urgently. But the conversation still left unanswered questions of why the utility hadn’t done more to strengthen its system in the first place — and what roles regulators, legislators and the utility had to play in the choices made.
Their challenges include not having direct contact information for more than half of its customers because retail electric companies that sell power to residents and businesses maintain that data. CenterPoint officials said they would need new regulatory policy from the PUC to make it easier to get that information from the retail companies.