Global real estate manager to tap into solar energy to power Houston portfolio

shine on

Brookfield Properties announced plans to power its Houston properties with solar energy by 2026. Photo via brookfieldproperties.com

Commercial real estate manager Brookfield Properties, a major office landlord in Houston, is plugging into solar energy to power its local portfolio.

The New York City-based company plans to rely on a new-build solar power plant to supply all of the electricity for its 10.3 million-square-foot, 10-building office portfolio in the Houston area. Brookfield’s key properties here include:

The 3.1 million-square-foot Allen Center complex
The more than 1.1 million-square-foot Heritage Plaza
The 1.1 million-square-foot 1600 Smith Street tower
The nearly 850,000-square foot TotalEnergies Tower

Laura Montross, vice president of communications for Brookfield Properties, tells Realty News Report that the solar power plant will be operating by 2026.

Each year, the company’s Houston portfolio uses about 90,000 megawatt-hours of electricity, “which is unlikely to take up the total capacity of a new solar power plant,” she says, “so the excess capacity will be available to other buyers or the utility grid operator for purchase.”

Montross says Brookfield is in talks with several developers of solar power plants about the Houston project, but neither a site nor a contractor has been chosen yet.

Brookfield announced June 28 that its entire U.S. office portfolio will run on zero-emissions electricity by 2026. The switch is expected to reduce carbon emissions within the more than 70-million-square-foot portfolio by about 80 percent.

“Instead of taking incremental steps or waiting for others to act, we are completely transforming how we power office buildings throughout the United States,” Ben Brown, managing partner of Brookfield Real Estate, says in a news release.

Brookfield Properties says electricity for the nationwide office portfolio will come from four sources: hydropower (49 percent), solar and wind power (33 percent), and nuclear power (18 percent). Outside Houston, the company maintains a large office presence in the New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, and Washington, D.C. markets.

“Not only will [this strategy] significantly advance our goal of transitioning our entire portfolio to net zero carbon,” Brown says, “but also we are confident that both the increased demand for zero-emissions electricity it will create and the industry precedence it will set will be a game-changer for how state-of-the-art office buildings are powered throughout the country.”

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CenterPoint launches $65B capital improvement plan

grid growth

To support rising demand for power, Houston-based utility company CenterPoint Energy has launched a $65 billion, 10-year capital improvement plan.

CenterPoint said that in its four-state service territory — Texas, Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio — the money will go toward building and maintaining a “resilient” electric grid and a safe natural gas system.

In the Houston area, CenterPoint forecasts peak demand for electricity will increase nearly 50 percent, to almost 31 gigawatts, by 2031 and peak demand will climb to almost 42 gigawatts by the middle of the next decade. CenterPoint provides energy to nearly 2.8 million customers in the Houston area.

In addition to the $65 billion capital improvement budget, which is almost 40 percent higher than the 2021 budget, CenterPoint has identified more than $10 billion in investment opportunities that could further improve electric and natural gas service.

“Every investment we make at CenterPoint is in service of our approximately seven million metered customers we have the privilege to serve,” CenterPoint president and CEO Jason Wells said in a news release.

“With our customer-driven yet conservative approach to growth, we continue to see significant potential for even more investment for the benefit of our customers that is not yet reflected in our new plan,” he added.

UH projects propose innovative reuse of wind turbines and more on Gulf Coast

Forward-thinking

Two University of Houston science projects have been selected as finalists for the Gulf Futures Challenge, which will award a total of $50 million to develop ideas that help benefit the Gulf Coast.

Sponsored by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Gulf Coast Research Program and Lever for Change, the competition is designed to spark innovation around problems in the Gulf Coast, such as rising sea levels, pollution, energy security, and community resiliency. The two UH projects beat out 162 entries from organizations based in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

“Being named a finalist for this highly competitive grant underscores the University of Houston’s role as a leading research institution committed to addressing the most pressing challenges facing our region,” said Claudia Neuhauser, vice president for research at UH.

“This opportunity affirms the strength of our faculty and researchers and highlights UH’s capacity to deliver innovative solutions that will ensure the long-term stability and resilience of the Gulf Coast.”

One project, spearheaded by the UH Repurposing Offshore Infrastructure for Continued Energy (ROICE) program, is studying ways to use decommissioned oil rig platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as both clean energy hydrogen power generators as well a marine habitats. There are currently thousands of such platforms in the Gulf.

The other project involves the innovative recycling of wind turbines into seawall and coastal habitats. Broken and abandoned wind turbine blades have traditionally been thought to be non-recyclable and end up taking up incredible space in landfills. Headed by a partnership between UH, Tulane University, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the city of Galveston and other organizations, this initiative could vastly reduce the waste associated with wind farm technology.

wind turbine recycled for Gulf Coast seawall. Wind turbines would be repurposed into seawalls and more. Courtesy rendering

"Coastal communities face escalating threats from climate change — land erosion, structural corrosion, property damage and negative health impacts,” said Gangbing Song, Moores Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UH and the lead investigator for both projects.

“Leveraging the durability and anti-corrosive properties of these of decommissioned wind turbine blades, we will build coastal structures, improve green spaces and advance the resilience and health of Gulf Coast communities through integrated research, education and outreach.”

The two projects have received a development grant of $300,000 as a prize for making it to the finals. When the winner are announced in early 2026, two of the projects will net $20 million each to bring their vision to life, with the rest earning a consolation prize of $875,000, in additional project support.

In the event that UH doesn't grab the grand prize, the school's scientific innovation will earn a guaranteed $1.75 million for the betterment of the Gulf Coast.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

ERCOT steps up grid innovation efforts to support growing power demand

grid boost

As AI data centers gobble up more electricity, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) — whose grid supplies power to 90 percent of Texas — has launched an initiative to help meet challenges presented by an increasingly strained power grid.

ERCOT, based in the Austin suburb of Taylor, said its new Grid Research, Innovation, and Transformation (GRIT) initiative will tackle research and prototyping of emerging technology and concepts to “deeply understand the implications of rapid grid and technology evolution, positioning ERCOT to lead in the future energy landscape.”

“As the ERCOT grid continues to rapidly evolve, we are seeing greater interest from industry and academia to collaborate on new tools and innovative technologies to advance the reliability needs of tomorrow’s energy systems,” ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said in a news release. “These efforts will provide an opportunity to share ideas and bring new innovations forward, as we work together to lead the evolution and expansion of the electric power grid.”

In conjunction with the GRIT initiative, ERCOT launched the Research and Innovation Partnership Engagement (RIPE) program. The program enables partners to work with ERCOT on developing technology aimed at resolving grid challenges.

To capitalize on ideas for grid improvements, the organization will host its third annual ERCOT Innovation Summit on March 31 in Round Rock. The summit “brings together thought leaders across the energy research and innovation ecosystem to explore solutions that use innovation to impact grid transformation,” ERCOT said.

“As the depth of information and industry collaboration evolves, we will continue to enhance the GRIT webpages to create a dynamic and valuable resource for the broader industry to continue fostering strong collaboration and innovation with our stakeholders,” said Venkat Tirupati, ERCOT’s vice president of DevOps and grid transformation.

ERCOT’s GRIT initiative comes at a time when the U.S. is girding for heightened demand for power, due in large part to the rise of data centers catering to the AI boom.

A study released in 2024 by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) predicted electricity for data centers could represent as much as 9.1 percent of total power usage in the U.S. by 2030. According to EPRI, the share of Texas electricity consumed by data centers could climb from 4.6 percent in 2023 to almost 11 percent by 2030.

A report issued in 2024 by the federal government’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory envisions an even faster increase in data-center power usage. The report projected data centers will consume as much as 12 percent of U.S. electricity by 2028, up from 4.4 percent in 2023.

In 2023, the EPRI study estimated, 80 percent of the U.S. electrical load for data centers was concentrated in two states, led by Virginia and Texas. The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Media Engagement reported in July that Texas is home to 350 data centers, second only to Virginia.

“The U.S. electricity sector is working hard to meet the growing demands of data centers, transportation electrification, crypto-mining, and industrial onshoring, while balancing decarbonization efforts,” David Porter, EPRI’s vice president of electrification and sustainable energy strategy, said. “The data center boom requires closer collaboration between large data center owners and developers, utilities, government, and other stakeholders to ensure that we can power the needs of AI while maintaining reliable, affordable power to all customers.”

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