Making Houston the most resilient coastal region requires proactive planning and regional collaboration to prepare for severe weather and the power disruptions it can cause. For businesses, that means understanding critical load, how utilities prioritize restoration and what steps they can take to strengthen their own preparedness.
What is Critical Load?
Critical load is a formal designation for facilities where electricity is essential to protecting public safety or where an outage could create dangerous conditions. This can include hospitals, 911 centers, police and fire stations, water and wastewater systems and certain industrial operations.
The designation is important because it helps utilities identify facilities with critical operational needs and prioritize them when restoring power during an outage. Businesses and organizations can request the designation from the electric utility that serves their facility.
Plan for Power Disruptions
Critical load designation is an important planning tool, but it does not guarantee uninterrupted electricity or immediate restoration. Essential facilities should still maintain continuity plans, backup-power systems, fuel supplies and options for reducing or relocating operations.
RELATED: Building a More Resilient Houston Through Weather Preparedness
At the Greater Houston Partnership’s Resilience Forward event, Sean Meredith, vice president of project delivery for Entergy Texas, emphasized the importance of planning for outages.
“The first thing we always try to do is make folks understand that in these major events, the power is going to go out,” Meredith said. “You need to have a plan for the power to go out.”
Even resilient infrastructure can face unexpected challenges. Meredith shared that during Hurricane Ida—a Category 4 storm that struck Louisiana with winds reaching 150 mph—a transmission line withstood the winds as designed but was ultimately knocked out after being struck by a loose barge.
Restoration Follows the Grid
Public safety is the first priority after a major outage. Crews begin by assessing damage and addressing immediate hazards, then restore power from the source outward. Transmission lines and substations must be operating before electricity can reach neighborhoods and businesses.
Once those larger systems are working, utilities prioritize critical services such as hospitals, emergency response facilities, police and fire stations, water systems and communications networks. Crews then move to lines serving large groups of customers, followed by neighborhoods and individual connections.
Restoration may look uneven, but this sequence allows utilities to restore essential services safely while returning power to the greatest number of customers as efficiently as possible.
CenterPoint Energy has been working to strengthen the grid and reduce the impact of outages through its Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative. Investments in stronger infrastructure, underground lines and automated switching technology are helping limit disruptions and support faster restoration when outages occur. CenterPoint expects its resiliency improvements to prevent 150 million customer outage minutes through 2026.
Learn more about the Partnership’s regional resilience efforts.