Houston business energy: CenterPoint territory

CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric is the delivery utility, and its classes run on voltage

There is one investor-owned delivery utility for the Houston metro: CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC, whose Tariff for Retail Delivery Service governs the wires, the meters and the terms of access. What surprises businesses arriving from other states is how the tariff divides its customers. The delivery system charges are published by service class as Residential Service, Secondary Service at or below 10 kVA, Secondary Service above 10 kVA, Primary Service, Transmission Service and Lighting Services. The commercial classes are cut by service voltage and capacity rather than by what the business does, so a restaurant and a machine shop on the same secondary service share a class, and the same restaurant moved to primary service does not. A Houston quote is only meaningful once the class is established, because delivery is the half of the invoice that no supplier controls and no broker can negotiate. The same tariff carries the riders that make up the rest of that half, including the transmission cost recovery factor, the distribution cost recovery factor and the energy efficiency cost recovery factor, each set by the Commission rather than by the supplier on the account.

• One investor-owned delivery utility serves the metro: CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric. The wires are not open to competition.
• Delivery charges are published by class: Residential, Secondary at or below 10 kVA, Secondary above 10 kVA, Primary, Transmission and Lighting.
• Commercial classes turn on voltage and capacity rather than business type, so class assignment is a fact to establish before any comparison.
• Delivery riders are set by the Commission; a supplier bills the supply half of the same invoice and nothing on the delivery half.
• The territory has edges. Some addresses in the metro are served by a municipal system or a cooperative, where no supplier can reach the meter.

The Houston load zone, and the import constraint behind it

ERCOT settles Houston load in its own zone, LZ_HOUSTON, and the reason it separates from the North and West zones is geography rather than market design. The metro sits at the end of a transmission path rather than on top of generation, so importing power into it is a capacity question. When that path is constrained — because of an outage, an upgrade in progress, or simply a hot afternoon — the cost of serving Houston load separates from the price in zones with fewer import limits. ERCOT names the path directly. Its December 2025 Report on Existing and Potential Electric System Constraints and Needs lists the North–Houston Interface among the top ten projected constraints on the system in both the 2027 and the 2030 base cases, alongside a Panhandle interface and individual 345 kV lines. For a buyer the consequence is simple and easy to miss: a Houston quote and a Dallas quote built on identical usage are not interchangeable, and the gap between them is not a negotiating position. It is the cost of a different grid path, and it lands in the delivery half of the invoice rather than the supply half.

• Houston load settles in ERCOT's Houston load zone, LZ_HOUSTON.
• ERCOT's December 2025 constraints report lists the North–Houston Interface among its top ten projected constraints for both 2027 and 2030.
• Zone separation comes from import capacity into the metro, not from anything about retail market structure.
• A Houston and a North Texas quote on identical usage are not interchangeable; the difference is the grid path, and it appears in delivery charges.

Summer afternoons, where Houston's two peaks fall together

Two separate mechanisms key off the same hours of the Houston year. The first is the coincident peak: ERCOT allocates transmission costs using the single highest fifteen-minute system-wide demand interval in each of June, July, August and September, so an account's transmission exposure turns on its own demand inside four very short windows a year. The second is the zone's own scarcity. ERCOT's 2026 Summer Weather and Operations Outlook reports a summer 2025 peak of 83,679 MW against a 2026 forecast peak of 92,211 MW, and notes that approximately 4,300 MW of coincident-peak load response was observed in 2025 as large loads began treating those windows as an operating commitment rather than a theory. That is why procurement timing and reduction work are the same conversation in Houston. The months that decide next year's transmission charge are the months the wholesale market is dearest, so a term that begins in late spring is being priced in the worst hours of the Houston year, while a term that ends in spring leaves the following summer open. Term structure, not the headline offer, is what a Houston buyer actually controls.

• ERCOT's four coincident peaks use the highest fifteen-minute system interval in each of June, July, August and September.
• ERCOT's 2026 summer outlook carries an 83,679 MW summer 2025 peak and a 92,211 MW forecast for summer 2026.
• Approximately 4,300 MW of coincident-peak load response was observed in 2025.
• Renewal dates falling in late spring price the contract inside Houston's most expensive hours; an end date in spring leaves the next summer open.

Storm restoration has become a line on the Houston delivery bill

No other Texas metro carries a storm-recovery argument through its tariff in quite this form. After the May 2024 derecho and Hurricane Beryl, the Commission opened Project No. 56822, an investigation of emergency preparedness and response by utilities in Houston and surrounding communities, on 15 July 2024 at the governor's direction, and issued requests for information covering emergency drills and planning, public communication, restoration processes, physical infrastructure, vegetation management, staffing and mutual assistance. The cost side reached the tariff separately. CenterPoint Houston filed its 2026–2028 Transmission and Distribution System Resiliency Plan in PUCT Docket No. 57579, and the current delivery tariff carries Schedule SRC II, the system restoration charges, with a fourteen-year term implemented under the financing order in Docket No. 57559, together with Rider ADFITC II, a credit returning the accumulated deferred federal income tax benefit associated with the May 2024 storm restoration costs to customers on that schedule. Securitisation is why storm recovery here is not a single rate case adjustment but a long-lived, visible component of every Houston delivery bill, and the tariff says plainly that where a securitisation financing order conflicts with the tariff, the order controls. The assets behind the charge have their own cadence: in the investigation record CenterPoint describes a little over a million wooden poles and structures on a ten-year inspection cycle, about ten percent inspected annually, through an eighteen-step process that includes excavation below the grade line and sounding for internal voids.

• Project No. 56822 opened on 15 July 2024, covering the May 2024 derecho and Hurricane Beryl; requests for information went to Houston-area electric, water, sewer and telecommunications utilities.
• Requests for information covered emergency planning, public communication, restoration processes, physical infrastructure, vegetation management, staffing and mutual assistance.
• The 2026–2028 Transmission and Distribution System Resiliency Plan is filed in PUCT Docket No. 57579.
• Schedule SRC II system restoration charges run a fourteen-year term under the financing order in Docket No. 57559, with Rider ADFITC II crediting the related deferred tax benefit.
• The utility's investigation responses describe a little over a million wooden poles and structures, a ten-year inspection cycle and roughly ten percent inspected each year.

Gas in Houston is a transportation decision, not a shopping trip

Commercial gas in Houston does not behave like electricity. The pipes belong to CenterPoint Energy Resources Corp., doing business as CenterPoint Energy Entex and CenterPoint Energy Texas Gas, and the company's Texas rate book divides the state into geographic rate areas — Houston, Texas Coast, South Texas, and Beaumont/East Texas — with separate sheets for incorporated and unincorporated areas, so the same consumption pattern can fall under different filed terms a county line away. The classes themselves are cut by size: Rate Schedule No. GSS-2099-I applies to general service and industrial customers whose average monthly usage in the prior calendar year is 150,000 cubic feet or less, while larger volume moves to the GSLV schedule. Above the point where a site carries enough load, the question stops being which supplier to buy from and becomes which service to take. Sales service means the utility sells the molecule. Transportation service means the business buys its own gas and the utility moves it, and Rate Schedule No. T-93-26 governs that route: service is available where a written transportation service agreement is executed, the company redelivers an equivalent quantity in its Texas Division, the company does not take title to the gas, and actual consumption at the delivery point is estimated at 10 MMBtu per day or more. A second schedule, T-94-26, serves public school district campuses eligible to purchase State Royalty Gas, at a higher threshold. The condition is a daily estimate rather than an annual figure, which is why the honest answer to whether a Houston site qualifies is arithmetic on its own winter consumption rather than a rule of thumb about how big the company is.

• CenterPoint Energy Resources Corp., d/b/a CenterPoint Energy Entex and CenterPoint Energy Texas Gas, serves the area; its rate areas are geographic, with separate incorporated and unincorporated sheets.
• Rate Schedule No. GSS-2099-I covers general service and industrial use averaging 150,000 cubic feet a month or less in the prior calendar year; larger volumes move to GSLV.
• Transportation service under Rate Schedule No. T-93-26 requires an executed agreement, an equivalent redelivery, no utility title to the gas, and estimated consumption of at least 10 MMBtu per day.
• Rate Schedule No. T-94-26 serves public school district campuses eligible for State Royalty Gas, at a higher daily threshold.
• Sales service means the utility sells the molecule; transportation means the business buys it and the utility moves it.

Who regulates what in Houston

Texas splits the two fuels between two agencies, and knowing which one owns a question is most of the work of resolving it. Electric retail competition belongs to the Public Utility Commission: it certifies retail electric providers, sets the rules those providers must follow, and requires the Electricity Facts Label that discloses a product's average price at stated usage levels, its term and its cancellation terms. Natural gas utility service belongs to the Railroad Commission of Texas, whose Oversight and Safety Division administers intrastate gas utility tariffs, rate schedules and transportation rules through the gas services functions of the agency. Service in unincorporated areas sits under the Commission's exclusive jurisdiction, while municipal jurisdiction varies by city, which is why the sheet that applies to a Houston-area property can depend on where it sits relative to a city limit. The Commission's curtailment rule settles what happens when a gas utility cannot meet every firm contract during an emergency: human-needs customers and the local distribution systems serving them come first, electric generation next, then the industrial and commercial users whose gas is needed to prevent physical harm, with small industrials and regular commercial loads below those tiers. The ordering is drawn in cubic feet per day rather than in what any facility assumes about its own importance to the system, which is why firm-supply language in a Houston gas contract is worth reading line by line before it is signed.

• Electric retail competition and supplier certification sit with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, including the Electricity Facts Label requirement.
• Gas utility tariffs, rate schedules and transportation rules sit with the Railroad Commission, through its gas services functions.
• Gas service in unincorporated areas is under the Commission's exclusive jurisdiction; municipal jurisdiction varies by city.
• The curtailment priority order places human-needs customers and their local distribution systems first, then electric generation, with small industrials and regular commercial loads below.

What to gather, and how HighGround works in Houston

A Houston request that gets a usable quote contains six facts, and a site's own records already hold all of them: twelve consecutive months of kWh and any demand data the bills show, the account and meter numbers, the delivery utility behind the meter, the current contract's end date and the notice period required to leave it, confirmation of who actually controls the utility account where the premises are master-metered or multi-tenant, and the expiration dates of every site the business wants priced together. Where gas is in scope, add twelve consecutive months of usage in Mcf or Ccf and the geographic rate area the property falls in, because the Houston, Texas Coast, South Texas and Beaumont/East Texas sheets are separate filed tariffs and a quote built on the wrong one is not a quote. Competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory: municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have no choice at all, and in Texas the meter is the test rather than the city name. HighGround works as an advisor-assisted channel rather than a rate table, sourcing electricity and gas supply through the Broker Online Exchange supplier network and the adjacent categories — connectivity, communications, security, cloud and software — through the AppDirect ecosystem. HighGround may receive provider compensation on completed purchases. Sending an inquiry places no order and switches no supplier.

• Twelve consecutive months of kWh, plus kW demand where the bills show it, and the account and meter numbers.
• The current contract's end date and the notice period required to leave it.
• Who controls the utility account when the building is master-metered or multi-tenant.
• For gas, twelve months of usage in Mcf or Ccf and the property's geographic rate area.
• Competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory; municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have no choice at all.
• HighGround may receive provider compensation on completed purchases, and an inquiry places no order and switches no supplier.

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