CenterPoint Energy Profile

CenterPoint Energy has a large customer base in both electric and natural gas, and it sprawls from Mississippi to Minnesota.

Based in Houston, Texas, CenterPoint serves two million electric customers in the Houston metropolitan area and 3.2 million natural gas customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas (including high-growth sections of Houston and Minneapolis).

CenterPoint’s Houston electric delivery system suffered substantial damage and revenue loss as a result of Hurricane Ike, which struck the upper Texas coast in September, 2008.

Smart Grid

CenterPoint received PUC approval in December 2008 to deploy an advanced metering system throughout its service area over the next five years at a cost of approximately $640 million for meters and related communications and data management systems.

The utility began installing smart meters in March 2009 and expects to install 145,000 meters by year end. Approximately 500,000 meters will be installed each year over the next four years until 2.4 million meters are installed across CenterPoint's service territory by 2014.

Renewables

CenterPoint offers its customers information on connecting solar panels or wind turbines to the electric grid, but does not appear to have significant initiatives under way in terms of renewable generation.

For vendors only …

While shifting into high gear with its AMI roll out in a territory that is not only huge but diverse, CenterPoint is also dealing with home area networking challenges and trying to find a way to manage its end-user infrastructure. CenterPoint seems to have money to spend and with the challenges it faces may be willing to do it with the right partner.