Cybersecurity
Crumbling U.S. Grid Gets Jolt Driving Smart Houston Power
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On a recent muggy morning, Jeff Myerson, a manager for Houston-based CenterPoint Energy Inc., is pointing to mundane-looking gray metal boxes up on a wooden utility pole. They mask high-tech capabilities: State-of-the-art wireless relays that collect information on customers’ power use in 15-minute intervals.
He’s showing a visitor around Braeswood, a tree-lined neighborhood of several hundred 1950s-era ranch homes about seven miles (11 kilometers) southwest of downtown. It’s being refitted for CenterPoint’s “intelligent grid.” This first phase is scheduled to be completed by year-end at a cost of $138 million, with the help of a $50 million U.S. grant.