Webinar: Grid Reliability, Resilience, & Utility Modernization with CenterPoint Energy’s Jason Wells

In this OpenMinds Speaker Series webinar, Executive Director David Baldwin talks with Jason Wells, chairman, president and CEO of CenterPoint Energy, about grid reliability, load growth and keeping power affordable. The conversation served as a lead-in to the OpenMinds 2026 Grid Vision Summit (OM26) at Stanford and the OpenMinds Grid Vision Impact Project.

Key points

• CenterPoint serves about 7 million customers in four states and forecasts a 50% increase in peak demand by 2029, driven by industry, life sciences and data centers.
• Wells says load growth can support affordability: spreading fixed costs over a growing customer base has kept CenterPoint's rates flat since 2014.
• After a 2024 hurricane, CenterPoint focused on prevention with drones, a digital twin and self-healing grid technology, saving customers 100 million outage minutes year over year.
• Texas adopted a 765 kV transmission standard, and Wells expects more 765 kV lines to be built in Texas in about the next seven years than exist across the U.S.