On Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009, CenterPoint Energy held a press event at its corporate headquarters in Houston to announce that it had been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive a $200 million stimulus grant for a project titled “Houston’s Smart Grid:  Transforming the Future of Electric Distribution & Energy Consumption.”

Cllck on this video link to see and hear the speakers' remarks

• David McClanahan, President and CEO, CenterPoint Energy
• Ken Salazar, United States Secretary of the Interior 

The project involves two distinct but interdependent parts. CenterPoint Energy will use $150 million of the $200 million grant to accelerate its current smart meter and associated equipment installation that make up its Advanced Metering System (AMS), which will benefit consumers and the environment. The $50 million balance will be used to accelerate the installation of the first phase of CenterPoint Energy's Intelligent Grid (IG) that utilizes the AMS and other technologies to build a self-healing grid to improve operational efficiency and reliability in the nation's fourth largest city and "Energy Capital of the World."

For more information on smart meters and the intelligent grid, click on the links to the left under  Smart Meters.