Arkansas utility outlines upgrade measures

Entergy Arkansas officials said the utility has embarked upon an equipment upgrade process designed to improve service reliability for both industrial and residential customers.

Workers engaged in the El Dorado area are slated to rebuild transmission lines through the middle of November. The project will enhance nearly three line miles of 115kV transmission line and equipment in two substations.

“Our first goal as a company is to provide safe, reliable electricity to our customers at a reasonable rate,” Chris Wasson, customer service representative for Entergy Arkansas, said. “This project is an investment in the southwest part of Arkansas that will improve our service to the area. We appreciate our customers’ patience while we make these upgrades to the system.”

Once the work is done, customers will experience service reliability while the utility would remain in compliance with federal regulations to add capacity to the lines, which officials said also add redundancies and more options for restoration in the case of an outage.

Entergy Arkansas provides electricity to approximately 700,000 customers in 63 counties and serves as a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation, an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations.

While officials said that additional substation work is scheduled from December through February, they acknowledged that the work would not be as visible to customers.