grid resilience
CenterPoint reports progress on grid improvements ahead of 2025 hurricane season
As part of an ongoing process to make Houston better prepared for climate disasters, CenterPoint Energy announced its latest progress update on the second phase of the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI).
CenterPoint reported that it has completed 70 percent of its resiliency work and all GHRI-related actions are expected to be complete before the official start of the 2025 hurricane season.
"Our entire CenterPoint Houston Electric team is focused on completing this historic suite of grid resiliency actions before the start of hurricane season,” Darin Carroll, Senior Vice President of CenterPoint's Electric Business, said in a news release. “That is our goal, and we will achieve it. To date, we have made significant progress as part of this historic effort.”
CenterPoint’s resiliency solutions include clearing higher-risk vegetation across thousands of miles of power lines, adding thousands more automation devices capable of self-healing, installing thousands of storm-resistant poles, and undergrounding hundreds of miles of power lines.
CenterPoint's GHRI efforts, which entered a second phase in September 2024, aim to improve overall grid resiliency and reliability and are estimated to reduce outages for customers by more than 125 million minutes annually, according to the company. It has undergrounded nearly 350 miles of power lines, about 85 percent of the way toward its target of 400 miles, which will help improve resiliency and reduce the risk of outages. CenterPoint also aims to install the first of 100 new local weather monitoring stations by June 1.
In March, CenterPoint cleared 655 miles of high-risk vegetation near power lines, installed 1,215 automated reliability devices capable of self-healing, and added an additional 3,300 storm-resilient poles.
In April, CenterPoint will begin building a network of 100 new weather monitoring stations, which will provide 24/7 weather monitoring and storm response preparation.
“We will continue to work every day to complete these critical improvements as part of our company's goal of building the most resilient coastal grid in the country,” Carroll added in the release.