CenterPoint's answer to Harris County: a $70.7 billion grid and a $5 billion promise

CenterPoint Energy's▲+0.72% — CenterPoint Energy, up 0.72 percent today answer to the fight over who pays for Houston's AI-driven grid buildout is a bigger plan, not a smaller one. This morning's third-quarter filing↗ from the Houston electric and gas utility lifts its 10-year capital plan to $70.7 billion, the second raise in two quarters ¹². A further $1.5 billion moves into the next five years, toward Greater Houston's demand ¹.

Chief Executive Jason Wells repeated the number his affordability case rests on: about $5 billion in savings for Texas customers over the next decade ¹². The company's wager is that growth pays for itself. Harris County, home to Houston, is building the other camp (our October 24 report) ³.

A state audit will test how much of the demand is real

Texas's grid operator, ERCOT, faces 474 gigawatts of new connection requests↗, more than five times the record peak the state has ever met, and roughly 90% are data centers ⁵. Nobody yet knows how much of that queue is real, which is what the governor's audit is for ⁵.

CenterPoint's Houston territory sits at the front of the line: it submitted more than 17 gigawatts of projects into ERCOT's first review batch, Batch Zero, and expects 14 gigawatts to qualify, against a system peak of 21 gigawatts today ². Houston's grid already holds about 10 gigawatts of existing hosting capacity, so new load connects fast ².

Two money streams follow. Each connected gigawatt pays roughly $6 million a month in demand charges, cash from the new customers ². And the $70.7 billion of capital itself becomes rate base, the asset base Texas lets a utility earn on, now expected to compound above 14% a year through 2030 ¹.

The savings promise has to survive three dates

The savings figure is a company forecast, not an audited result, and it holds only if the demand arrives and the costs land where they are caused ¹. The pressure started at the state level: Governor Greg Abbott's office issued a June 10 directive to keep the cost of data-center infrastructure off Texans' bills, and on August 3 he ordered the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to verify every large data-center project↗ before it connects ⁵⁶.

Harris County followed on October 15, when its commissioners, warning that data centers drive up residents' bills, approved oversight measures↗ and directed staff to seek new state powers when the Legislature convenes in January ³⁴.

ERCOT files what survives on December 10, the commission meets on it a week later, and the first batch's study results are due on April 9 ⁵.

Analysts' price targets sit close to the share price

The quarter was clean: non-GAAP earnings of $0.53, up from $0.50 a year earlier ¹. Guidance for 2026 rises to $1.90-$1.92, and 2027 starts at $2.07-$2.09, both about 9% growth at the midpoint ¹. Across 21 analysts the consensus is Outperform, with the average target about 7% above Monday's close↗ ⁷. That narrow spread is the market saying it already believes the growth. TD Cowen, starting coverage at Buy on October 22↗, flagged the other half: the audit may create headline risk even as Houston's growth drives the earnings ⁷⁸.

The December count and the January session decide the rest

CenterPoint has done the real work between AI demand and delivered power: it found spare capacity, submitted more than 17 gigawatts into Batch Zero and collected customer commitments against them ². Today's plan is what that work earns; the savings are the unproven part. A bill landing on residents who did not cause the growth is what the county and the governor both say they intend to prevent ³⁵. Under every version of this fight now on the table, Houston's grid grows. The open question is whose bill it grows on.