Screenshot/PUCT
The Public Utility Fee of Texas has issued its report on CenterPoint Vitality’s dealing with of Hurricane Beryl, forward of Governor Abbott’s Dec. 1 deadline. The report recommends the Texas Legislature take steps to enhance communication between utilities and prospects throughout a catastrophe.
A serious focus of the report is CenterPoint’s failures when it got here to speaking with prospects about outages and restore occasions. CenterPoint repeatedly acknowledged this was an issue in its conferences with the PUC and with prospects within the months since Beryl, pledging to do higher. The report advisable a legislative repair.
“One of many suggestions appears to be like to be mainly a proper for shoppers to have entry to name facilities, in order that they’ll really communicate to a human being who is aware of what is going on on with the outages and can provide them higher estimates and updates on restoration occasions,” mentioned Ted Kury, director of power research on the College of Florida’s Public Utility Analysis Middle. “They’re mainly asking the legislature so as to add most of these protections to the Public Utility Regulatory Act, Chapter 17, which apparently outlines buyer protections.”
On a associated notice, the report mentioned CenterPoint and different utilities ought to plan for outage tracker disruptions and excessive consumer demand as situations of their annual hurricane and main storm drills. CenterPoint’s outage tracker went offline within the wake of the Could derecho and had not been restored by the point Hurricane Beryl struck. That fueled buyer outrage as Beryl-related energy outages stretched on for days.
The report additionally recommends lawmakers take into account growing the penalty cap for electrical service high quality violations. At the moment, the annual cap stands at $25,000. It additionally contains instructions to the Fee itself, together with relating to new rules to make it simpler for patrons to report bushes which are threatening energy traces.
Kury mentioned that these adjustments ought to enhance customer support, however these enhancements will not come at no cost.
“It should lead to prices,” Kury mentioned, “particularly if you happen to’re now guaranteeing that every one utilities have name facilities and adequate personnel available to speak with of us within the occasion of an outage.”
Following the PUC’s report, CenterPoint despatched a press release to Houston Public Media pointing to the corporate’s work since July to strengthen preparedness for main storms and hurricanes.
“As a part of this effort,” the corporate mentioned, “we’re additionally implementing enhancements advisable by an unbiased third-party skilled and have already accomplished or begun two-thirds of their 77 suggestions.”
