• Consumers inside city limits must purchase their gas from the company granted the franchise to serve the city. In Houston, that company is CenterPoint Energy.
• CenterPoint Energy services an area encompassing 5,000 square miles in the Houston area, with more than 50,142 miles of overhead and underground electric transmission and distribution lines. In 2008, the company delivered natural gas to 1,120,474 residential, 59,405 commercial and 379 industrial customers in the Houston area. (Source: 2008 Annual Report; Fingertip Facts; Gas Marketing Dept.)
• Consumers outside the Houston city limits (or other city limits) may purchase natural gas from any producer with available supply. Anadarko, BP America, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, El Paso, Marathon, EOG Resources, ExxonMobil and Shell are among the largest producers of natural gas in Texas.
• Large consumers may purchase gas on the spot market or negotiate long-term contracts for the supply of natural gas. Contract rates depend on a number of factors, including proximity to a major pipeline, customer's overall demand, current market conditions, anticipated market conditions, and other factors. Spot market prices depend mainly on the current supply and demand.
• Natural gas supplies remain abundant in Texas. The state has 72.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. Texas has more than the next three states combined and nearly five times the amount in the Federal offshore reserves. (Source: Energy Information Administration)
• Texas has been consistently a leading producer of natural gas. There are 76,436 producing gas wells in Texas, 17 percent of the US total and the most in the nation. In 2007, the state produced over 6.17 trillion cubic feet of natural gas-one third of US onshore production, more than the combined volume of the next three states and nearly three times the Federal offshore production. (Source: Energy Information Administration)

Electricity
The majority of Texas enjoys a deregulated energy market, thus providing electricity customers with a selection of retail providers and open market competition.

• For the majority of the Houston region, electric power is provided by CenterPoint Energy, the local PUC-regulated Transmission and Distribution Utility, or "local wires company". Regardless of which retail electric provider a company or consumer selects, CenterPoint Energy continues to provide the reliable electric power to each of the homes and businesses within their service area. CenterPoint also continues to maintain the power poles and wires between power generation facilities and customers, and responds to all service interruptions.
• In 2008, CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) delivered 74.84 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) electricity to 1,814,960 residential, 262,556 commercial, 784 municipal and 2,066 industrial users in its 5,000-sq.mi. service area in the Houston region.
• CenterPoint owns 3,727 overhead miles and 26 underground miles of transmission lines and 27,603 overhead miles and 19,690 underground miles of distribution lines.
• The Texas Public Utility Commission works in conjunction with ERCOT to ensure reliable electric power.
• The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the flow of electric power to 22 million Texas customers - representing 85 percent of the state's electric load and 75 percent of the Texas land area. ERCOT schedules power on an electric grid that connects 40,000 miles of transmission lines and more than 550 generation units. ERCOT also manages financial settlement for the competitive wholesale bulk-power market and administers customer switching for 6.5 million Texans in competitive choice areas.
• ERCOT ensures electricity transmission reliability by managing the incoming and outgoing supply of electricity over the grid and issues instructions to generation and transmission companies to maintain balance.
• ERCOT serves as the central hub for retail transactions. When a consumer chooses a retail electric provider, ERCOT ensures the information related to that transaction is conveyed to the appropriate companies in a timely manner.
• Under Texas' deregulation guidelines, all retail electric providers are encouraged to buy power through long-term contracts, thus helping to protect electricity customers from price spikes on the spot market.
• New power sources come on-line quickly in Texas. It routinely takes three years or less to go from conception to operation of a power plant in Texas. The U.S. average is approximately four years and in some states the regulations are so challenging that construction of new power sources can take seven or more years to complete.
• The majority of electric power generation in Texas is provided by wind, solar, nuclear, gas and coal sources.

COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL SERVICE

Telecommunications
With NASA's Johnson Space Center, twenty-nine Fortune 500 headquarters, thousands of multinational companies and the world's largest medical center, the Houston region benefits from some of the most sophisticated and robust communications networks in the world.

• The Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has certified 431 Competitive Local Exchange Carriers to provide local phone service statewide or specifically within the Houston region. Principal among the Houston area's local service providers are AT&T Texas, Birch Telecom, CBeyond Communications, Comcast, Grande Communications, Logix Communications, Qwest Communications, Verizon and XO Communications.
• The Texas PUC has also registered 1,870 Interexchange Carriers to provide long distance phone service for residents and businesses in Texas.
• More than a dozen cellular service providers offer mobile voice and data communications in the Houston MSA. Major cellular firms with a Houston presence include AT&T, Cricket, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.
• Houston has smart buildings with built-in telecom systems. Using state-of-the-art telecommunications with combined voice, data and video offerings provide economies of scale, one-stop convenience, and reliability.
• The Houston region has an abundance of both lit and dark fiber installed throughout our major road and rail corridors.
• AT&T, formerly Southwestern Bell, is the incumbent telecom provider in the Houston area.
• With more than $6 billion invested in Houston and approximately 3.2 million telephone access lines, AT&T is the largest local access provider. State-of-the-art telecommunications equipment completes more than 70 million Houston telephone connections daily.
• AT&T announced that it has invested nearly $30 million through the second quarter of 2009 to complete a substantial upgrade of its local 3G wireless network in the Houston area with the launch of additional wireless spectrum in the 850 MHz band. Locally, more than 550 cell towers were updated as part of this enhancement.

Water & Sewer
Houston has the water and sewer capacity to meet the current and future needs of the region.

• The City of Houston provides a dependable supply of water to the area, with its service area being the incorporated city limits. In areas that are not yet city-served, state-regulated water districts (Municipal Utility Districts or M.U.D.s) operating on a franchise basis, serve specific areas or developments. The City of Houston's system is rated as a Superior Water Supply System by the State of Texas. The city has completed its $1.2 billion program to improve the collection system and control sanitary sewer overflows when infiltration/inflow from wet weather events exceeds system capacity.
• The city operates 39 wastewater treatment plants, three major sludge processing plants, two wet weather facilities and 420 lift stations. It maintains 6,250 miles of sanitary sewer lines with more than 440,000 connections. Average wastewater treatment flow is 252 mgd; permitted treatment capacity is 563 mgd.
• Water supply now available or under development will meet Houston's needs beyond 2035. The San Jacinto River Basin of Lakes Houston and Conroe provides the city an estimated firm yield of 210 mgd; wells add 752 mgd. The City of Houston owns water rights to 912 mgd of the Trinity River Basin from Lake Livingston, the Wallisville Reservoir, the Dayton Canal and the Barbers Hill Canal. Lake Livingston accounts for 86.7 percent of the surface water used by the city; Lake Houston supplies the other 13.3 percent. Most major Houston Ship Channel industries have contracted to take at least 90 percent of their water from the city's Trinity River System.