NEW ORLEANS – Entergy says hotter than normal weather contributed to an outage that left more than 21,000 customers in the dark Tuesday afternoon.
According to a statement from Entergy, thousands of customers lost power when a breaker tripped at a substation serving the Uptown area while crews were performing a scheduled “reliability project.” During the project, Entergy New Orleans shifted load to another transformer.
“The transformer was able to handle the additional load until Tuesday, when the load increased in part due to hotter-than-normal weather experienced in the area,” a statement from the company said.
New Orleans set a record high temperatures of 96 degrees Monday and Tuesday.
Entergy said the company is monitoring system conditions and has taken steps to mitigate any other issues.
Entergy’s full statement is below:
“A breaker tripped at a substation serving the Uptown area Tuesday afternoon while crews were performing a scheduled reliability project. As part of the scheduled reliability project which began more than a week ago, Entergy New Orleans shifted load to another transformer. The transformer was able to handle the additional load until Tuesday when the load increased in part due to the hotter-than-normal weather experienced in the area. Crews were on the scene to safely restore power to 21,000 customers affected by the outage through field switching within 45 minutes. The remaining 2,700 customers were restored at 4:59 p.m. ENO performed additional field switching to mitigate this issue going forward and will continue to monitor system conditions and respond appropriately.
Entergy New Orleans has a reliability program and a storm hardening program, both of which have been filed with the New Orleans City Council. From 2016 to 2018, including planned expenditures in 2018, we have spent or will be spending over $50 million to improve the distribution system”