CenterPoint Energy, Inc.

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. is an American regulated electric and natural gas utility holding company that serves approximately 7 million metered customers across Texas, Indiana, Minnesota, and Ohio, generating $9.36 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025. Headquartered in Houston, the company owns the wires-and-pipes infrastructure that delivers electricity to the Texas Gulf Coast — including the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan area for data-center load — and distributes natural gas across eight states through its regulated local distribution companies.

This is a story about a regulated utility that has stumbled into something most utilities never see: a structural demand shock. Houston Electric's territory is ground zero for the hyperscaler buildout in ERCOT, with 12.2 gigawatts of firmly committed industrial load — nearly double what the company disclosed just three months earlier — and 8 GW expected to be energized by 2029. The capital plan has swelled to $65.5 billion over the next decade, the growth algorithm has accelerated by two years, and the earnings power is being underwritten by a corporate AMT ruling that could push cash taxes to near zero through 2035. The file turns on a single question: whether the company can execute on this once-in-a-generation infrastructure buildout in a hurricane corridor without the balance sheet, the regulatory compact, or the operational machinery breaking under the strain.