CenterPoint Energy has added $4 billion to its ten-year capital investment plan, taking total planned capital expenditure through 2035 to $70.7 billion, up from the $66.7 billion announced in July, company officials said on Tuesday on the third quarter earnings call. The company also accelerated about $1.5 billion of spending into the first half of the plan, driving a $4.5 billion increase to planned investment through 2030.
Of the planned spending, $51.5 billion is on the electric side and $19 billion will go to natural gas operations, with the remainder at the corporate level. CenterPoint expects 14 gigawatts of new demand to come online through 2030 and said the growth is expected to generate $5 billion in customer savings across Texas over the next ten years. The company has received nearly 1 gigawatt of distribution level load requests in the last year and has submitted 17 gigawatts of projects to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas large load interconnection process, of which it expects 12 gigawatts to be eligible as base or studied load.
“This incredible demand is creating a powerful multiplier effect, as large industrial expansions drive broader commercial growth across our service territory,” chairman, president and chief executive Jason Wells said, noting industrial and commercial leasing activity in the Houston area is up more than 30 percent from last year. Wells said the company has identified more than a dozen transmission projects to add load serving capacity and continues to see at least $10 billion of additional investment opportunities through 2035 beyond the increase announced on Tuesday.
CenterPoint reported third quarter net income of $331 million, or 50 cents per diluted share, against 45 cents a share a year earlier, initiated 2027 non-GAAP earnings guidance of $2.07 to $2.09 per share, and said system reliability has improved 40 percent since 2024. The plan will be recovered through regulated rates over time, so its financing is a rate base story rather than a merchant bet on load materialising.