The Public Utility Commission of Texas has issued its report on CenterPoint Energy’s handling of Hurricane Beryl, ahead of Governor Abbott’s Dec. 1 deadline. The report recommends the Texas Legislature take steps to improve communication between utilities and customers during a disaster.
A major focus of the report is CenterPoint’s failures when it came to communicating with customers about outages and repair times. CenterPoint repeatedly acknowledged this was a problem in its meetings with the PUC and with customers in the months since Beryl, pledging to do better. The report recommended a legislative fix.
“One of the recommendations looks to be basically a right for consumers to have access to call centers, so that they can actually speak to a human being who knows what’s going on with the outages and can give them better estimates and updates on restoration times,” said Ted Kury, director of energy studies at the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center. “They’re basically asking the legislature to add these types of protections to the Public Utility Regulatory Act, Chapter 17, which apparently outlines customer protections.”
On a related note, the report said CenterPoint and other utilities should plan for outage tracker disruptions and high user demand as scenarios in their annual hurricane and major storm drills. CenterPoint’s outage tracker went offline in the wake of the May derecho and had not been restored by the time Hurricane Beryl struck. That fueled customer outrage as Beryl-related power outages stretched on for days.
The report also recommends lawmakers consider increasing the penalty cap for electric service quality violations. Currently, the annual cap stands at $25,000. It also includes directions to the Commission itself, including regarding new regulations to make it easier for customers to report trees that are threatening power lines.
Kury said that these changes should improve customer service, but those improvements won’t come for free.
“It’s going to result in costs,” Kury said, “especially if you’re now ensuring that all utilities have call centers and sufficient personnel on hand to talk with folks in the event of an outage.”
Following the PUC’s report, CenterPoint sent a statement to Houston Public Media pointing to the company’s work since July to strengthen preparedness for major storms and hurricanes.
“As part of this effort,” the company said, “we are also implementing improvements recommended by an independent third-party expert and have already completed or begun two-thirds of their 77 recommendations.”
