CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (CNP) Business Profile

What it does

CenterPoint Energy is a public utility holding company that owns and operates businesses delivering electricity and natural gas. Founded in 1882, it is headquartered in Houston. Jason P. Wells is its chair, president and chief executive officer.

Its Houston Electric business moves electricity across transmission lines and distributes it to homes and businesses in the Texas Gulf Coast area. Retail electric providers sell the electricity to those end users; Houston Electric provides the delivery network, metering and outage response rather than making direct retail electricity sales. It also provides transmission service elsewhere in the ERCOT region.

In southwestern Indiana, CenterPoint both delivers electricity and owns generation assets used to serve electric customers. It also buys and sells power through the regional wholesale market. Its natural gas businesses sell, transport and store gas for residential, commercial and industrial customers in Texas, Indiana and Minnesota. They also provide pipeline connections and, in Minnesota, appliance repair and maintenance and HVAC equipment sales.

CenterPoint completed the sale of its Ohio natural gas distribution business on October 1, 2026. Its remaining operations connect customers to energy through regulated utility networks, while the Indiana electric business also supplies power from its own generation assets.

How it makes money

CenterPoint reports Electric, Natural Gas, and Corporate and Other segments. The majority of its revenue comes from transmitting and delivering electricity and selling natural gas through its subsidiaries. Utility service produces recurring revenue as customers use energy and the company bills for delivery or supply.

Houston Electric operates under rates and terms set by the Texas utility regulator and certain municipalities. Retail providers pay it to transmit and distribute electricity to their customers. Distribution charges for residential and small commercial customers are primarily based on energy delivered; for most large commercial and industrial customers, they are primarily based on peak demand. The regulated charges can also include mechanisms to recover eligible investments and other costs. Houston Electric bills retail providers on a continuous cycle rather than relying on long-term customer contracts.

Indiana Electric collects rates from customers for electricity delivered. Its generation expenses and investments are recovered through regulator-approved base rates and periodic recovery mechanisms. The business participates in the regional power market and receives transmission revenue when other members use its transmission system. Proceeds from sales of its generation above retail customers’ requirements are provided to retail customers.

The natural gas utilities sell gas and provide transportation and storage. Substantially all are subject to cost-of-service regulation, and some jurisdictions allow annual rate adjustments tied to changes in invested capital or actual margins. Gas cost changes can generally be passed through to customers under purchased gas adjustment provisions, subject to regulatory review. Corporate and Other primarily supports the operating businesses.

Customers and how it sells

CenterPoint serves households, businesses and industrial customers through its utility systems. In Texas, its direct Houston Electric customers include retail electric providers, municipalities, electric cooperatives and other distribution companies. The retail providers sell electricity to the homes and businesses connected to Houston Electric’s network.

As of December 31, 2025, Houston Electric served nearly all of the Houston/Galveston metropolitan area and had 2,859,313 metered customers in its service area. Indiana Electric supplied service to 154,402 metered customers in southwestern Indiana at the same date. Its Indiana operations include customers in and near Evansville.

At December 31, 2025, CenterPoint’s natural gas distribution businesses had 4,029,085 customers across Texas, Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio. Their largest metropolitan areas included Houston, Minneapolis, Evansville and Dayton. Those figures describe the footprint before the company completed its Ohio gas business sale on October 1, 2026; the remaining gas systems are in Texas, Minnesota and Indiana.

Natural gas customers include residential, commercial, industrial and transportation users. Demand varies with weather: residential gas usage is associated with heating, while Houston Electric’s revenue is generally higher in warmer months when customers use more electricity for cooling. The company also offers appliance services in Minnesota and home repair protection plans through a third party in certain gas territories.

Suppliers and costs

CenterPoint purchases natural gas under supply contracts and transports it through interstate and intrastate pipelines. In 2025, Tenaska Marketing Ventures, LLC supplied 32% of CenterPoint’s natural gas purchases, while Macquarie Energy, LLC supplied 12%. Numerous other suppliers provided the remainder alongside the other major supplier listed by the company. Gas purchase costs can generally be passed through to customers, subject to regulatory review.

Indiana Electric buys fuel for its generation facilities and purchases power under supply agreements. Sunrise LLC accounted for 100% of Indiana Electric’s coal purchases for the year ended December 31, 2025. Indiana Electric has also contracted for wind and solar power, including agreements with NextEra Energy, Inc. and Origis.

Beyond fuel and purchased power, costs include operating and maintaining networks and generation facilities, financing and capital investment. CenterPoint has experienced supply-chain disruptions and increased prices and scarcity of resources and labor. It uses internally generated cash, borrowings, transaction proceeds and securities issuance to fund investments. Higher financing costs can affect the cost of carrying out its capital plan.

Competitive position

There are no other electric transmission and distribution utilities in Houston Electric’s or Indiana Electric’s service areas. A new provider would need regulatory authorization to provide transmission and distribution service in those territories. Indiana’s service territory certificates are exclusive; in Houston, a provider may also need municipal franchises depending on where its facilities are located.

Our reading: these territory and approval requirements provide a substantial barrier to another utility building a competing delivery network in the same areas. Distributed generation near customers could reduce demand for distribution service, although it has not been a significant factor to date.

CenterPoint’s natural gas businesses compete with electricity and other fuels. In some areas, pipelines, other gas distributors and marketers compete directly for gas sales. Marketers may also be able to bypass CenterPoint’s facilities to sell or transport gas directly to commercial and industrial customers. Most of the gas franchises are not exclusive.

Our reading: gas franchises provide an established operating position, but their generally non-exclusive terms and the ability of some suppliers to bypass the network make that protection less complete than Indiana Electric’s exclusive territory. No competing company is named as a direct competitor in the available business descriptions.

Growth opportunities

CenterPoint’s growth plans center on investing in its utility systems and serving additional demand. The company increased its 10-year capital investment plan to $70.7 billion through 2035, including $4 billion of newly identified Houston transmission projects. It also accelerated $1.5 billion of projects into the first five years of the plan.

The company expects Houston-area demand growth from large customers and smaller transmission and distribution users. It submitted approximately 14 gigawatts of customer demand as eligible load for ERCOT’s Batch Zero process and expects to energize at least 14 gigawatts by the end of 2030, including smaller customer growth. CenterPoint expects approximately 2 gigawatts to remain as studied load and remains confident in the 10 gigawatts of baseload demand it previously outlined.

CenterPoint says it sees at least $10 billion of additional investment opportunities through 2035 beyond the announced increase. These include further Houston transmission infrastructure, resilience initiatives and large-load opportunities in Indiana. It expects to update its transmission study in the first half of the following year and is targeting a new system resilience plan filing by the end of 2027.

The company expects non-GAAP earnings per share growth at the mid to high end of its 7% to 9% annual range through 2030. It also expects 7% to 9% annual growth through 2035. These are company expectations, and the planned investment depends on funding and regulatory recovery.

Structural risks

• Regulatory recovery: Rate regulation may delay or deny the company’s ability to earn an expected return and recover costs fully and on time. Indiana regulators may disallow generation costs they deem unreasonable or imprudent.
• Service interruptions: Generation disruptions, inadequate supply or other events can interrupt electric delivery. When customers cannot receive electricity or gas, CenterPoint can lose revenue and generally must seek regulatory approval to recover restoration costs.
• Financing and execution: CenterPoint relies on internal and external funding for its capital plan. Higher interest rates or reduced credit ratings can increase borrowing costs or restrict access to financing. Supply-chain disruption, inflation, labor shortages and scarce materials can also affect execution.
• Customer affordability: Rising investment and costs can increase bills and lead to customer resistance and regulatory scrutiny. Indiana Electric cancelled nearly $1 billion in renewable generation projects in 2025 in consideration of affordability concerns.
• Demand and project uncertainty: Forecast load growth and CenterPoint’s ability to capitalize on it are uncertain. In the ERCOT audit process, customers withdrew approximately two gigawatts of studied load as they finalized their plans.

Bottom line

Our reading

Our reading: CenterPoint is principally a regulated energy-delivery business whose electric territories and gas networks support recurring utility revenue, with Indiana generation adding a power-supply business. Its investment plan depends on customer demand arriving, access to financing and regulators allowing timely cost recovery. Exclusive electric territories provide protection from direct network competition, while weather, affordability and project execution remain material exposures.