(Reuters) – CenterPoint Energy on Thursday increased its capital expenditure plan by $500 million to strengthen its electricity grid to handle the surging demand for power from new data centers coming up across the country.
Power demand from data centers in the U.S. is expected to nearly triple in the next three years and consume as much as 12% of the country’s electricity, according to a study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
CenterPoint expects demand to grow nearly 50% by 2031 in the Houston electric service territory, and on Thursday increased its 10-year capital plan through 2030 to $47.5 billion to improve the resilience its grid in the region.
The company’s peers Dominion Energy, Duke Energy and DTE Energy have also raised their respective capital expenditure plans in the last month to accommodate the rising power demand from data centers.
Utilities were among the biggest winners in the S&P 500 last year on expectations of surging demand from data centers. The S&P index tracking utilities rose 19.6% in 2024.
The energy delivery company also reaffirmed its 2025 profit forecast between $1.74 and $1.76 per share after meeting Wall Street expectations for fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 40 cents per share.
The company’s quarterly net income rose to $248 million, or $38 cents per share, from $192 million, or 30 cents per share, a year ago.
(Reporting by Pooja Menon in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)
