Most Houstonian’s know CenterPoint Energy as the company that owns the power lines and poles around the city, as well as the natural gas lines that serve homes and businesses. But starting this week CenterPoint wants to be known as something else: an objective voice on retail electric rates.
CenterPoint Energy Insights has been added to the Voices roster for FuelFix (also known as that-column-on-the-right-side-of-the-Fuelfix.com-page-where-different-people-spout-off-on-a-variety-of-energy-topics).
The blog will feature a variety of experts from within the company talking about retail electric rates that are available to the more than 2 million Houston-area customers as well as ways to use electricity more wisely.
CenterPoint has also launched a weekly Electric Price Index, which runs in the Houston Chronicle’s business section on Sundays.
CenterPoint doesn’t sell electricity directly to customers — that’s the job of retailers like Reliant Energy, TXU, Direct Energy or any of the other dozens of firms licensed in Texas.
However, every electric bill includes fees that are passed on from CenterPoint for maintaining the local power grid, installing smart meters and other items. Even if your bill doesn’t break out the CenterPoint charges, they’re still there.
(Full disclosure: CenterPoint is not paying the Chronicle for the content nor is the Chronicle paying CenterPoint for the content on the blog or the weekly index.)
CenterPoint Energy kicked off the blog this week with Shane McLaughlin, a manager with CenterPoint Energy Services, explaining the basics of the index:
The Index analyzes a broad range of plans available to Houston-area residential customers. It tracks weekly price changes in the one-year, fixed-rate electricity plans and shows the highest, lowest and plan price averages.
Also included is a table with the current average prices for six-month and two-year plans, plus the “green premium,” which is how much more you might expect to pay per month for energy from 100 percent renewable sources.
