CenterPoint to spend more to meet AI power demand despite fall in quarterly profit

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(Reuters) -CenterPoint Energy reported a fall in first-quarter profit on Thursday, but the U.S. utility raised its capital expenditure plan to meet expected demand from data centers used for artificial intelligence technologies.

A winter storm in January across the U.S. Gulf Coast brought major cities like Houston and New Orleans to a near-standstill and broke records for the coldest day across the regions.

The ensuing damage to power lines and widespread outages increased the operating and maintenance (O&M) costs for utilities.

CenterPoint said its O&M costs rose 5.4% from a year ago to $747 million during the quarter. Costs for natural gas, fuel and purchased power rose nearly 28% to $1 billion.

But the company raised its 10-year capital expenditure plan through 2030 by $1 billion to $48.5 billion, expecting a surge in demand from AI companies.

U.S. utilities have been adding billions of dollars to their capex plans as they field massive requests for new power capacity from Big Tech firms scouring the country for viable locations for new data centers. CenterPoint had raised its 10-year capital budget in the previous quarter as well.

The utility said on Thursday that requests for new connections grew by nearly 7 gigawatts since the end of January, strengthening its “conviction in the robust economic outlook for (Texas) and the capital investment increase we announced today.”

CenterPoint provides electricity and natural gas to more than 7 million customers across Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas.

The Houston, Texas-based company said its net income fell to $297 million, or 45 cents per share, in the quarter ended March 31, from $350 million, or 55 cents per share, a year ago.

(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)