The Public Utility Commission of Texas mandates that individual electricity customers with certain health conditions be afforded certain rights regarding power service.
The stipulation does not provide any guarantees regarding uninterrupted service or faster power restoration in the event of an outage.
Nonetheless, Ray Doster, who depends on both medical equipment and refrigerated medication, said it is worth signing up for the service after spending just two-and-a-half hours without power throughout the last two storms.
“You got that expedited service because of your medical need?” KPRC 2 reporter Joel Eisenbaum asked.
“Probably. Probably. I’d like to think so. I’d like to think that there’s a reason,” Doster said.
The chief benefit outlined by state statute is a notification system for residential customers with one of the two medical designations.
CenterPoint Entergy and others in the electricity provision space are mandated to keep such customers in the loop regarding estimated power restoration.
Finding that information for regular customers was a tall task for hundreds of thousands of CenterPoint customers during the mid-May storm.
The provision can be seen in its entirety here.
You can find the application for Chronic Condition / Critical Care customer status here.