Entergy’s data shows that the majority of outages are due to transmission and distribution equipment problems. In 2017, the council opened Docket UD-17-04 to look into what is causing our system problems, even on blue sky days, and ways to fix them. Two years later, Entergy was found to have acted imprudently in its reaction to the reliability crisis. On November 7, 2019, the Council passed Resolution R-19-442 imposing a “one-time $1 million penalty against Entergy.” Sadly, the story does not stop there. On December 6, 2019, Entergy sued the Council in the Civil District Court over the one-time $1 million penalty.
On June 13, 2022, Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Rachael Johnson issued a ruling in favor of Entergy, releasing them from the $1m fine. Entergy has not resolved its reliability issues in the intervening period. In fact, Entergy’s reliability declined significantly in 2021 compared to previous years. In May 2024, the Council and Entergy agreed to settle this disagreement with a $500,000 credit to capital improvements to the city’s distribution system.
photo: nola.com/news/weather
The Council has created reliability standards that now direct Entergy New Orleans to report regularly on outages and penalize Entergy when parts of their system perform poorly year over year. The Alliance is still advocating for stronger standards, as Entergy’s poor service would still have met the standards in most years.
As storms of all kinds intensify due to climate change, “resilience” is a buzzword these days. Since Hurricane Ida in 2021, utility regulators have begun to look more closely at how to ensure people can stay safe and power can stay on, or come back more quickly, after these events. Dockets have been opened at the LPSC and New Orleans City Council to identify how utilities should plan and invest in resilience, while Entergy companies have filed applications to their regulators for billions in new spending to harden the grid.
The truth is, many challenges with our grid are due to long-standing disinvestment in the maintenance of our existing infrastructure, which impact both everyday reliability and resilience after storms. The Alliance is also urging regulators to consider different ways to address resilience concerns and think holistically about what it means to adapt to the dangers of climate change. Only hardening the utility’s poles and wires doesn’t keep people safe in extreme heat and extreme cold, and can’t address the needs of communities when the power does go out.
