Why centerpoint sucks so badly, a journey through their own numbers
 |
Why did 2.2 million of centerpoint's 2.7 million customers lose power on monday. Channel 11 did a great job highlighting the root cause. Centerpoint has been grossly neglecting tree trimming for several years, and that is why you lost or still don't have power. This equates to between 37 million to 124.5 millions of dollars of last years profits… and they've been doing this for years. Here is their vegetation reports for several years: I highlight these years for a reason. Centerpoints customers went from 1.6 million in 2017 to 2.7 million in 2024. That is almost double the number of customers over that period… So you would figure their maintenance budget would increase proportionally, but that is not the case. If that scaled with customers they would be spending 50 million a year on tree trimming… but wait that number is before our massive inflation over the last several years. To just manage vegetation at the same rate as in 2014 they would need to be spending double what they used to be spending just to account for inflation, and not even accounting for new customers. They should be spending ~100 million a year on vegetation management currently to be managing at a similar level to 2014. Now lets talk about the elephant in the room… Centerpoint is constantly talking about their poor overworked employees and linemen… (Their dirty douchebag CEO, and his squeaky clean ironed safety jacket, was going on and on about how their employees are doing the best they can to try to deflect criticism and garner sympathy) Well lets look at their employee numbers from their annual reports for 2017 and 2023: From 2017 to 2023… their labor profile has been flat… i didn't bother posting every years, but its comical some years where they kept the exact same head count…. No wonder their employees are burnt out… there is not enough of them. Now i could calculate what the number should be one of two ways… I could estimate using their increase in transmission and distribution lines… Which is a small number as a lot of the new customers were near existing line infrastructure as the city increased in density. Or i could calculate based upon the increase in customers… but then i get a number saying that they needed to hire an additional 1,900 people… so i'm not sure what the number should be… but i do know it should be higher. The only functional way i think i can calculate it is by looking at their peers and their labor profiles over the years with customer growth, and its late and i'm tired. submitted by /u/olordmike |
