We’ll see. I’m very skeptical, but I consider this to be an interesting test case of the proposition that CenterPoint’s service area could be reduced.
After Beryl wiped out power in the [Creekside Park] neighborhood and the county, officials within The Woodlands Township’s board of directors and Montgomery County are pushing to have Entergy Texas take over CenterPoint’s service area in The Woodlands.
Entergy Texas was not immediately available for comment.
Up to 75 percent of Montgomery County residents lost power during Beryl. And while both Entergy and CenterPoint both took more than a week to restore power to residents, Entergy had more consistent and accurate communication, The Woodlands Township board director Brad Bailey said.
“It’s not always what you want to hear, but Entergy is very good at saying, ‘We’re going to be out there between the hours of such and such, but we can’t give you a timeline that we’re going to be putting up,'” Bailey said. “The first time (CenterPoint) showed up in Creekside just to do eyes on what they’re dealing with was (July 12) at 5 p.m.”
CenterPoint had 75,000 outages in the county July 11 as Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough began pushing for more accurate updates from the electricity provider.
“Of 12 counties in their power grid, in all but two days, (Montgomery County was) the lowest in activations but the fourth largest in their power grid,” Keough said. “Our ability to communicate with Entergy was much greater (than CenterPoint,)…it was the hardest thing in the world to get to a decision maker.”
Keough said that he has begun working with legislators to see if portions of CenterPoint’s service area, including Sterling Ridge in Montgomery County and Creekside Park in Harris County, could eventually be serviced by Entergy.
“Your voice of wanting to do something in terms of breaking away from CenterPoint is a topic that is of discussion…but it is no small task,” Keough said. “If I had it my way….we’d want all of Montgomery County going over to (Entergy,)” Keough said.
Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to consider reducing CenterPoint’s service territory in greater Houston after Beryl “to make it smaller so maybe they can do a better job of managing it.” But the likelihood of the state diminishing CenterPoint’s territory is low, given the complexity of the undertaking, said Alison Silverstein, an independent consultant who previously worked as a senior adviser for both the PUC and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
See here for some background. Despite the reference to an expert in these matters, we still have no clear idea of what would actually need to happen for CenterPoint to be swapped out in some locations. How would it work? What are the obstacles – legal, regulatory, logistical, physical – that would need to be overcome? How long might it take? Why is an expert being name-checked if that expert is not quoted? I have no idea. As such, and until some evidence is given to the contrary, I see this all as empty threats.
And as a reminder and for what it’s worth, Entergy was the hated utility that failed to do its job and caused a lot of harm as a result back in the 90s. That was a long time ago and needn’t be a reflection on the company today, but it is a reminder that yesterday’s goat can be tomorrow’s hero. That they did a creditable job communicating about their outages is a good reason to look at them favorably, but that at least is something that even CenterPoint ought to be able to fix.
I would be very skeptical this could occur. Entergy is a regulated utility that provides both distribution and power. So, in addition to figuring our how to migrate the areas mentioned to Entergy, there would have to be compensation to all of the power providers that provide power to those areas. Overall, this seems like a bad idea.