What CenterPoint Energy, Inc. told the SEC could break it.

CenterPoint's regulated operations (Houston Electric is entirely in hurricane-prone Texas) are exposed to severe weather — hurricanes, tornadoes, winter storms — that drive restoration costs and commodity-price spikes that may not be fully recoverable (e.g., Feb 2021 Winter Storm regulatory asset).

“CenterPoint Energy's regulated operations are exposed to commodity price risk during severe weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes and severe winter weather conditions. Severe weather events can increase commodity prices related to natural gas, coal and purchased power, which may increase our costs of providing service, and those costs may not be recoverable in rates.”

CenterPoint's earnings and its ~$65.5B 10-year capital plan depend on rate-case outcomes and cost-recovery mechanisms across multiple regulators (Texas PUCT, Ohio PUCO, Minnesota MPUC, Indiana), with requested ROEs (e.g., 10.4%) subject to staff cuts.

“The filing seeks a revenue requirement increase of approximately $100 million based on a requested ROE of 10.4% and an equity percentage of 54.13%. ... On May 16, 2025, the PUCO staff filed its staff report recommending a revenue requirement range of $340.8 million to $350.3 million and a net increase of $25.1 million to $34.6 million based on an ROE range from 9.05% to 10.07%”

CenterPoint depends on third-party providers for natural gas supply, storage and pipeline transmission capacity (substantially all gas is bought on intrastate/interstate pipelines); failure to deliver could impair system reliability and operations.

“We depend on third-party service providers to maintain an adequate supply of natural gas and for available storage and intrastate and interstate pipeline capacity to satisfy our customers' needs, all of which are critical to system reliability. Substantially all of our natural gas supply is purchased on intrastate and interstate pipelines.”