CenterPoint Energy and Neara Announce Post-Hurricane Beryl Collaboration to Advance Electric Resiliency

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Mobilizing AI capabilities and digital modeling technologies will help optimize safety, reliability and resilience while reducing the impact on CenterPoint’s customers.

HOUSTON, September 26, 2024 – As part of the company’s ambition to become the most resilient coastal electric grid in the country, CenterPoint Energy (NYSE: CNP) today announced it has reached an agreement with Neara, an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered infrastructure modeling platform for engineering-grade simulations and analytics, to deploy Neara’s AI capabilities across CenterPoint’s 5,000-square-mile Greater Houston service area.

CenterPoint will supplement its existing systems with Neara’s technology to focus its investments strategically and cost-effectively and to continue to advance safety, reliability and resilience for the benefit of its approximately 2.8 million customers. Neara’s AI-enabled simulation and analytics platform are expected to help CenterPoint reduce customer outages and accelerate restoration efforts across its system.

“Leveraging technology and AI to deliver better outcomes for our customers and communities is a significant part of the commitment we made after Hurricane Beryl,” said CenterPoint President and Chief Executive Officer Jason Wells. “By simulating the potential impact of severe weather events on our infrastructure and customers, Neara’s platform and tools will inform our plans and actions before, during and after major weather events to help reduce the impact and duration of power outages. Understanding how weather scenarios and their risks could affect our operations will position us to be several steps ahead on our preparedness and response.”

Robert Brook, Neara Senior Vice President and Managing Director of the Americas, said, “We are thrilled to collaborate with CenterPoint as they lead the charge in addressing today’s most existential energy challenges. Our 3D digital modeling technology will help CenterPoint proactively reduce customer outages by simulating severe weather events, such as hurricanes, tropical storms, heat waves and flash floods, and their potential impact on the utility’s infrastructure.”

Neara’s technology will also support CenterPoint’s ongoing efforts to address higher-risk vegetation along power lines, as well as identify critical equipment upgrades, including pole replacements or reinforcements, quickly and efficiently. Additionally, Neara’s predictive technology will help CenterPoint prioritize specific assets and locations where grid hardening improvements will help optimize system-wide benefit. As targeted system upgrades are completed, CenterPoint will be able to quantify performance increases at the individual asset level and forecast, deliver and measure resilience improvements.

In late August 2024, CenterPoint announced the completion, ahead of schedule, of core resiliency actions as part of the first phase of its Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI), which included a series of targeted immediate actions to improve the resiliency of CenterPoint Houston Electric’s grid. The company also announced the boldest series of resiliency actions in its history, including a second phase of GHRI (currently underway from September 1, 2024 – June 1, 2025) which will include system hardening, strategic undergrounding, self-healing grid technology and further enhancements to the company’s outage tracker, as well as a longer-term resilience plan– which will be filed after discussions with stakeholders, elected officials, and customers – of approximately $5 billion in resiliency investment from 2026 to 2028, potentially doubling its prior planned investment.

Watch the segment: KPRC-NBC: Cutting edge AI helping CenterPoint track trees that need trimming 

Forward Looking Statement

This news release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this news release, the words “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “goal,” “intend,” “may,” “objective,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “projection,” “should,” “target,” “will” or other similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which include statements regarding our resiliency investments, timing, forgoing profits and related matters, are based upon assumptions of management which are believed to be reasonable at the time made and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual events and results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Any statements in this news release regarding future events that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Each forward-looking statement contained in this news release speaks only as of the date of this release. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the provided forward-looking information include risks and uncertainties relating to: (1) the impact of pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) financial market conditions; (3) general economic conditions; (4) the timing and impact of future regulatory and legislative decisions; and (5) other factors, risks and uncertainties discussed in CenterPoint Energy’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023 and CenterPoint’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2024 and June 30, 2024 and other reports CenterPoint Energy or its subsidiaries may file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

About CenterPoint Energy

As the only investor-owned electric and gas utility based in Texas, CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CNP) is an energy delivery company with electric transmission and distribution, power generation and natural gas distribution operations that serve more than 7 million metered customers in Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas. With approximately 9,000 employees, CenterPoint Energy and its predecessor companies have been in business for more than 150 years. For more information, visit CenterPointEnergy.com.

About Neara

Neara’s AI-assisted predictive modeling software helps infrastructure owners drive critical proactive decisions by conducting precise analyses in hours and days that would otherwise take months or years in the field. Engineering-grade simulation analyses reveal how assets behave in real-world environments during any scenario — empowering better, faster, more cost-effective decisions. The model supports end-to-end network governance, from routine operational decisions to emergency scenarios and major grid-hardening investments — without verification from manual surveys. Neara’s technology has modeled >1.5 million square miles of global network territory featuring ~10 million assets, across four continents from California to Ireland and Australia. Neara’s utility customers identify outage risks 9x faster, restore power 3x faster, and save thousands of field visits per year. More information is available at www.neara.com.

Media Contacts

CenterPoint Energy

Media: media.relations@centerpointenergy.com

Investors: Jackie Richert/Ben Vallejo, 713.207.6500

Neara

Media: neara@haymaker.co


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Neara’s Privacy Policy

GENERAL PROVISIONS 

1   THE NEARA GROUP 

Neara is committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy policy applies to Linesoft Pty Ltd t/a Neara ABN 84 606 633 443 of 7 Hudson Street, Redfern NSW 2016 as well its international subsidiaries Neara Software LLC and Neara Software UAB (each a Neara Group Company and together Neara, we, our, us). 

This policy (Privacy Policy) sets out how we manage your Personal Information. In particular, this Privacy Policy sets out how we will manage any Personal Information that is collected, handled or disclosed in connection with: 

▪ the Neara Platform; 

▪ the Neara Self Service Administration Portal; 

▪ the Neara Website; 

▪ our subsidiaries and affiliates; and 

▪ our third party suppliers and service providers. 


2   PERSONAL INFORMATION AND SENSITIVE INFORMATION 

Personal Information is defined in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) to mean information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable: 

▪ whether the information or opinion is true or not; and 

▪ whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not. 

Types of information that may constitute Personal Information include names, email addresses and phone numbers. 

Sensitive Information is defined in the Privacy Act to mean: 

▪ information or an opinion about an individual’s: (i) racial or ethnic origin; (ii) political opinions; or (iii) membership of a political association; or (iv) religious beliefs or affiliations; (v) philosophical beliefs; or (vi) membership of a professional or trade association; or (vii) membership of a trade union; or (viii) sexual orientation or practices; or (ix) criminal record, that is also personal information; 

▪ health information about an individual; 

▪ genetic information about an individual that is not otherwise health information; 

▪ biometric information that is to be used for the purpose of automated biometric verification or biometric identification; or 

▪ biometric templates.

Neara does not collect, handle or disclose your Sensitive Information under this policy. In very limited circumstances, Neara may collect, handle or disclose the Sensitive Information of its employees, contractors or job applicants. Such collection, handling and/or disclosure is regulated by separate policies. 


3   COLLECTING AND HOLDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION 

3.1 CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION THAT WE COLLECT AND HOLD 

We may collect and hold different categories of your Personal Information, which we have grouped together as follows: 

▪ Contact Information: includes your name, email, phone number and address; 

▪ Transaction Information: includes details about payments to and from you, and other details of products and services you have purchased from and sold to us; 

▪ Payment Information: includes credit card information and billing addresses; 

▪ Technical Information: includes Neara usernames and passwords, internet protocol (IP) addresses, login data, browser type, time zone setting and location, third party access tokens and other technology on the devices you use to access the Neara Platform or the Neara Self Service Administration Portal or any other internal websites, applications or intranets (Internal Applications) (if applicable). 

▪ Usage Information: includes information about how you use the Neara Platform, the Neara Self Service Administration Portal or any Internal Applications (if applicable). 

3.2 DIRECT COLLECTION 

We will collect Personal Information directly from you wherever it is reasonable and practicable to do so. This may be by correspondence, or use of either the Neara Platform or the Neara Self Service Administration Portal, by telephone, by email, via our website, from your website, from media and publications, from your response to any surveys or marketing materials we send out, or from other publicly available sources. 

3.3 INDIRECT COLLECTION 

In some circumstances a Neara Group Company may be provided with information by third parties or by another Neara Group Company. 

3.4 HOLDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION 

We generally hold Personal Information in electronic format, which we store either within our own internal systems and applications, or using third parties such as cloud service providers. We summarise the security of your personal information below.


4   PURPOSES OF COLLECTION, HOLDING, USE AND DISCLOSURE 

We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for a variety of reasons, including the most common circumstances listed below: 

▪ providing and marketing our services to you; 

▪ providing information to our customers; 

▪ to assess the performance of the Neara Platform, the Neara Self Service Administration Portal, or the Neara Website and to improve the services we provide in relation to each; 

▪ to process and respond to a complaint, help ticket or request made by you; 

▪ for purposes related to direct marketing (see section 7 of this policy for more details); 

▪ for purposes necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or which the entity that engages you (for example, your employer or contracting entity) is a party; 

▪ for the administration of our business and the business of our subsidiaries and other affiliated companies (including fulfilling and exercising our obligations and rights, exercising or defending legal claims and managing the relationship with you); or 

▪ where it is necessary to meet our obligations at law. 

You may unsubscribe from our mailing or marketing lists at any time by contacting us in writing.


5   DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION 

We may disclose your Personal Information amongst Neara Group Companies and our affiliated companies as well as to third parties or where required by law. 

Your Personal Information may be disclosed in a number of circumstances including the following:

▪ to technology partners, service providers or suppliers in connection with services that these third parties perform for us; 

▪ our lawyers, insurance providers and brokers, accountants and other professional advisers;

▪ our agents and contractors; 

▪ where required or authorised by law; and 

▪ to entities in the event to sell or transfer (or propose to sell or transfer) all or a portion of our business, equity interests or assets, in which case we will use reasonable commercial efforts to require that the transferee uses the Personal Information you have provided to us in a manner that is consistent with this policy.

We may transfer your Personal Information to New Zealand, the United Kingdom, European Union, Pakistan, India, United States and Canada, and to other countries in which we do business. We may also subcontract certain activities and share your Personal Information with third parties located in countries outside of Australia. The countries in which these organisations are located will vary, but we generally disclose Personal Information to organisations located in Pakistan and India. Such transfers are made in order to provide the services and carry out the activities specified in this policy.


6   CONSEQUENCES OF NO COLLECTION 

If you do not provide us with the Personal Information that we require, some or all of the following may occur:

▪ we or any involved third parties may not be able to provide the relevant services or products; 

▪ you may not be able to use the Neara Platform, the Neara Self Service Administration Portal, or the Neara Website; and 

▪ we may not be able to provide you with targeted content or relevant information.


7   DIRECT MARKETING 

We may provide you with electronic marketing messages from time to time. You may opt out of receiving electronic messages from us at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer via the contact details at the end of this policy, or by using the opt out mechanism included in our electronic marketing messages. 


8   SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your Personal Information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we also take steps that are reasonable in the circumstances to protect your Personal Information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected Personal Information breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are required to do so. When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your personal information. 


9   UPDATES AND ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION 

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the Personal Information we handle is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you become aware of any errors in your Personal Information held by us or if you require any changes, please contact our Privacy Officer to seek any such correction or change. 

You can request access to any Personal Information we hold about you at any time. From time to time, we may need to reject your request to access Personal Information we hold about you, if we believe it to be necessary and to the extent required by law. To request access to any Personal Information that we may hold about you, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact details set out at the end of this policy. Depending on your access request and where permitted by law, we may charge a small fee for complying with your request. In order to protect your Personal Information we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.


10   UPDATES TO PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time, and it is therefore important that you review it regularly. Any change to this Privacy Policy will become effective when we publish the revised Privacy Policy on our website or otherwise make it available to you.


11   INTEGRATIONS 

From time to time we may provide links or mechanics to interface with other applications or websites for your information or convenience, or to offer integrated services with other service or data providers. These applications or websites may be subject to alternative terms of use, including terms concerning your Personal Information. We have not reviewed these third party applications or sites and do not control, and are not responsible for these applications, sites or their content or privacy practices. 


12   COOKIES 

Our website may contain cookies from time to time. Cookies are a small file that is stored on your device by a website. Cookies contain information which is readable by the website that issued the cookie to you and is commonly used to remember your details and preferences when you return to that website. If you set up your web browser to reject cookies certain functions on the Neara Website may become unavailable to you. 


13   COMPLAINTS 

We take your privacy concerns seriously. If you have a complaint regarding our handling of your Personal Information (including a suspected breach of any privacy law) or concerning our privacy practices more generally, you may file a complaint with our Privacy Officer using the contact details set out at the end of this policy. If our Privacy Officer believes an investigation is necessary, we will open an investigation into your complaint. Our Privacy Officer may need to contact you to request further details of your complaint. If an investigation has been opened following a complaint made by you, our Privacy Officer will contact you with the result of that complaint as soon as possible. 

If we are unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.


14   CONTACT AND COMPLAINTS 

If you have any queries or complaints about our Privacy Policy please contact our Privacy Officer at: 

Attn: Chief Risk Officer 

Level 1, 7 Hudson Street 

REDFERN NSW 2016 

Email: info@neara.com


KARAMVIR SINGH 

CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER / CHIEF RISK OFFICER

 

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