Louisiana PSC approves first phase of Entergy Louisiana’s five-year grid resilience plan

Backing a plan to fortify and increase resilience of the Entergy Louisiana power grid infrastructure, the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) recently approved phase one of the company’s latest grid resilience plan.

As a result, Entergy Louisiana intends to launch 2,100 projects to reinforce critical transmission and distribution structures. All told, they should affect approximately 69,000 structures along the way, based on a data-driven approach for replacing existing utility poles.

“Our resilience plan is a proactive approach that will help bring more of our electric infrastructure up to higher standards, keep pace with Mother Nature and protect what matters most—customers, homes and businesses within the communities we serve,” Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO, said. “Although we have been building resilience into our power grid for years, we must accelerate those efforts now in light of the reality that storms are becoming more frequent and severe.”

The company noted that its plan should lead to approximately $1.2 billion in avoided future storm restoration costs, improvements for the everyday reliability of electric service and customer savings through shortened post-storm outages. To achieve this, it will replace thousands of utility poles with ones more capable of withstanding high wind and other extreme weather events.

The plan’s first phase should take around five years and cost approximately $1.9 billion. For the average residential customer, though, this will initially take the form of about 57 cents added to monthly bills. Over time, this will increase to approximately $7 per month, but once the five year period is over, bills will begin to decrease gradually once more. Quarterly monitoring will be offered for transparency throughout the process.

To help cut into the extra costs, Entergy Louisiana added that it will seek to court federal grants to apply to the cost of the plan.