CenterPoint Energy announces $65 billion growth plan
CenterPoint Energy, today announced a transformative 10-year plan aimed at advancing economic growth, enhancing the experience of customers, and delivering consistent value to all stakeholders across the jurisdictions it serves.
The investment is anticipated to serve the significant growth in electric demand over the next decade, especially in Texas. In its Houston Electric business, CenterPoint reiterated that it is forecasting electric peak load demand to increase by nearly 50% to nearly 31GWs by 2031 and announced that it now forecasts peak demand to double to nearly 42GWs by the middle of the next decade.
To support this unprecedented, forecasted demand, the company has expanded its customer-driven capital investment plan to a record $65 billion through 2035, which represents an increase of nearly 40% compared to the capital plan introduced at its 2021 Analyst Day. In addition to the core plan, more than $10 billions of incremental investment opportunities have been identified that could further improve customer outcomes
Building on a strong track record of execution, the new plan reflects a customer-centric vision focused on enabling economic development with a focus on building the most resilient coastal electric grid and safest gas systems in the country.
These planned capital investments serve as the foundation for CenterPoint’s increased and extended non-GAAP EPS guidance range in which it will now target the mid-to-high end of 7%-9% growth through 2028 and 7%-9%, thereafter, through 2035.
Jason Wells, President & CEO of CenterPoint, during an investor call stated, “Every investment we make at CenterPoint is in service of our approximately seven million-metered customers we have the privilege to serve. Today’s announced new, record capital investment plan will help us continue to meet and exceed our customers’ energy expectations now and, in the future, while helping unlock incredible economic growth across our six service territories, most especially here in the great State of Texas."
“With our customer-driven, yet conservative approach to this 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. Combined with this differentiated growth potential, we believe that our expected ability to efficiently finance and execute our plan and our service to several demographically growing geographies will help keep rates in line with inflation. We will seek to continue to capitalize on the benefits from these strong tailwinds and incorporate them into our refreshed 10-year plan,” added Wells.
