News Release > Coming Soon to a Town Near You: Entergy Mississippi Service Reliability Upgrades

Coming Soon to a Town Near You: Entergy Mississippi Service Reliability Upgrades

07/12/2016

As part of Bright Future plan, energy company invests $66.5 million in 2016 projects

JACKSON, Mississippi–Strengthening and modernizing the grid to power the future.

That’s the goal behind Entergy Mississippi, Inc.’s $66.5 million-plus investment in infrastructure projects designed to make your electrical service even safer and more reliable.

“Infrastructure upgrades aren’t the sexiest thing we do, but they are one of the most important,” said Robbin Jeter, Entergy Mississippi vice president of customer service. “A strong and modern power grid is every bit as vital as water, sewer and road infrastructure.” 

“Think of it this way,” he added. “Transmission and distribution lines are the ‘roads’ that take electricity from the generating plants to homes and businesses. Our substations are like electrical ‘intersections’ that tie the transmission and distribution systems together.”

Entergy’s electrical assets have grown as Mississippi has grown. Today, 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.

Much of this infrastructure has been in place for more than 60 years. While the company has maintained and expanded that infrastructure, eventually the time comes to replace aging equipment with new and improved technology.

 “Our goal is to have all work ready for construction by June 30 and complete the distribution portions by the end of 2016,” said Jeter.

Some of the improvements the company is making are:

• replacing some wooden poles with stronger composite material,
• changing from copper to aluminum conductors,
• increasing tree-trimming and other vegetation management efforts and
• building new distribution and transmission lines to deliver electricity to growing industries and communities.

“With residential rates that are among the lowest in the country, now is a good time to start these important service improvements and technological upgrades as the impact on customer bills will be lowered,” said Jeter.

Entergy Mississippi, Inc. provides electricity to approximately 445,000 customers in 45 counties. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including nearly 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $11.5 billion and more than 13,000 employees.

-30-

entergy-mississippi.com
Twitter: @EntergyMS
facebook.com/EntergyMS