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Dive Brief:
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CenterPoint Energy has acquired generators sized between 230 kW and 5 MW to help restore power during future grid outages, the utility said Friday. Larger generators were of little use following Hurricane Beryl in July, which led to widespread criticism of its storm preparations.
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PA Consulting Group published a third-party assessment of CenterPoint’s Beryl preparation and recovery efforts last week. Its 77 recommendations included for the utility to acquire smaller emergency generation units. CenterPoint says it has completed or is in the process of implementing 51 of the recommendations and is assessing the remaining 26.
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Following the storm, CenterPoint launched a $5 billion Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative to improve the local distribution system. “We heard loud and clear the calls for change and are acting with urgency,” utility President and CEO Jason Wells said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
Despite making dozens of recommendations for CenterPoint to improve its storm posture, PA Consulting’s analysis found the utility’s handling of Beryl to be on par with its peers.
CenterPoint’s preparation and response to Hurricane Beryl “were found to be generally consistent with industry standards, and its overall restoration time was comparable to its neighboring utilities,” the report concluded. It pointed to examples where the utility’s preparations, such as its acquisition of mutual assistance resources and the rapid deployment of staging sites and associated logistics, minimized recovery times.
Beryl “caused extensive damage” to CenterPoint’s electric infrastructure, primarily impacting the utility’s distribution system, according to the after-action report. The transmission system “proved resilient.”
The storm’s impact intensified as it hit Houston’s most densely populated service areas, and resulted in a high number of tree falls, many from outside utility easements, the report said. More than three-quarters of CenterPoint’s overhead distribution circuits experienced lockouts, and about 2.1 million customers were left without power.
Storm restoration took 11 days, which PA Consulting noted “was significantly shorter than the 17 days required for the company to restore power after Hurricane Ike [in 2008] and on par with peers during Hurricane Beryl.” About 78,000 CenterPoint customers were still without power after eight days after Beryl, the report noted.