Entergy Mississippi invests $16.6 million to improve power grid

Power company Entergy Mississippi has invested $16.6 million in improvements to bolster the power grid against storms and outages, while also making it more resistant to cyber-attacks and physical threats.

“This is part of a multi-year investment designed to strengthen all parts of our grid to help reduce power outages,” Robbin Jeter, Entergy Mississippi vice president of customer service, said. “A strong, reliable power grid is critical to our safety and way of life, and it’s necessary for job creation and growth.”

As part of the investment, Entergy Mississippi is taking on several improvement projects.

For example, they are spending $1 million on vegetation management, which involves trimming vegetation from 266 miles of line and 32 circuits. In addition, the company is spending $5.2 million to improve substations, while roughly $1 million will go toward replacing and upgrading existing equipment.

The money will also go toward changing conductors from copper to aluminum as well as swapping out wooden poles with stronger utility poles made of composite material.

Entergy Mississippi serves approximately 445,000 customers in 45 Mississippi counties. The company manages more than 20,000 miles of electrical lines, 291 substations, five natural gas-powered generating plants, and one nuclear plant in the state.

Last year, Entergy spent more than $66.5 million on improvement projects. Much of the infrastructure has been in place for more than 60 years. While the company has maintained and expanded that infrastructure, they need to replace aging equipment with new and improved technology.