The federal government has awarded CenterPoint Energy $50 million to build an advanced transmission system device that will equip the Houston grid with “ninja capabilities,” U.S. Department of Energy officials announced Thursday.
The Transmission Area Load Optimization Node, referred to as Project TALON — planned for CenterPoint’s King Substation in northeastern Harris County — is set for completion by late 2029.
Jason Ryan, CenterPoint’s executive vice president for regulatory services and government affairs, said the grant funding announced Thursday allows the project to start immediately. CenterPoint will fund the remainder of the $176 million project and won’t ask its customers for a rate increase until it’s complete.
“We would not seek recovery of those costs from customers until after the project is up and running and showing its benefits,” he said. “We expect that the rate impact, if it were to be approved, would be less than 5 cents a month, so around 50 cents a year, for this new technology to be implemented on the Houston grid.”
Catherine Jereza, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity, said as Houston grows, the government has a responsibility to ensure residents can count on consistent electricity service.
“I think of this as adding ninja capabilities to the grid,” she said. “It allows more awareness and response. If you are able to sense the danger that’s coming, the grid can respond much faster. Today’s technologies must go 1/60 of a second faster. We don’t have anything on the grid that can do that today. That’s what this does. It advances that capability.”
Project TALON is one of 31 projects across 26 states to receive federal grant funding for power infrastructure. Jereza said at Thursday’s press conference.
CenterPoint was heavily criticized during 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, which caused a multi-week blackout with more than 246 deaths reported statewide.
Many of CenterPoint’s 2.9 million customers complained that the response was not swift enough as people were unable to work and lost access to food, medication and oxygen machines. There weren’t enough generators online, a problem CenterPoint blamed on ERCOT.
“Our actual infrastructure — the poles and the wires — was fine,” CenterPoint’s Vice President of Resiliency and Capital Delivery Nathan Brownell told the Houston Press earlier this year. “We were waiting for the power, but there wasn’t enough power to send to the customers.”
After Uri, state law was changed to allow utilities to lease mobile generators for emergency use. CenterPoint agreed to lease a fleet of 20 large generators, some of which require cranes and special permitting to move, at a cost of roughly $800 million. The utility company didn’t use them during Hurricane Beryl in 2024 because, executives said at the time, they weren’t easily deployable in fast-breaking outages.
Since Beryl, the utility company has installed more than 50,000 hurricane-resistant poles built to withstand extreme weather. They’ve buried 400 miles of power lines underground and trimmed over 8,000 miles of high-risk vegetation. About 500 new automation devices have been added to monitor outages.
CenterPoint executives frequently repeat the mantra that they’re committed to building the most resilient coastal grid in the nation. Jereza said Project TALON will move them closer to that goal.
“Here in Houston, the challenge isn’t simply generating more electricity,” she said. “It is making sure the grid can deliver the power the growing economy needs, affordably, reliably and quickly. That is the idea behind Project TALON. Project TALON is about doing more with the grid we already have.”
According to the Department of Energy, Project TALON will “allow the grid to quickly respond to power fluctuations and better deliver consistent, continuous power. The project would increase the transmission system capacity and allow it to operate more reliably under high-loading situations.”
U.S. Congressman Christian Menefee, who hadn’t yet been elected when the federal grant program was approved, said he’s grateful for those who had the foresight to protect families in District 18 communities like Fifth Ward, Third Ward and Homestead, where residents have suffered during each of Houston’s recent storms.
“It was not just the winds hitting them, not just the rains falling and not just the floodwaters rising, but in many instances, the lights going off,” he said. “For many of us in this room who live nice lifestyles, that may not be that big of an issue. But for a family in Fifth Ward, to have the lights go out in the middle of a storm, it could be life-altering. For some folks, it could be life-ending. The resilience of our grid is so important to families across my district.”
