NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans City Council is set to discuss the future of Entergy New Orleans in the wake of both citywide power failures during Hurricane Ida and the utility's defiance in the face of criticism from ratepayers and councilmembers.
Council president Helena Moreno, who chairs the committee in charge of regulating Entergy in the city, said she will address alternatives for the Entergy monopoly in the city at the meeting. Entergy New Orleans representatives are expected to attend, but it's unclear if they will answer questions about the city's infrastructure.
The utility company said it would work with the city council, but in a statement sent Tuesday, they outlined several possible paths forward in the face of stronger regulation from the council.
Moreno on Twitter posted an outline of Entergy talking points that the company said it mistakenly sent to her, which includes an option to cut the planned Entergy substation designed to power Sewerage & Water Board pumps and divert them from antiquated turbines currently being used.
Logan Atkinson Burke, the executive director of the consumer advocate nonprofit Alliance for Affordable Energy, said the reportedly accidental release to Moreno was not actually an accident and should be seen as a threat by Entergy.
"It serves as one of the first times we've seen the threat said, the quiet part, out loud, which is 'we'll take our ball and go home if you regulate us,'" she said.
Entergy New Orleans has proposed four possible solutions:
Those plans include:
- Selling Entergy New Orleans to another utility company
- Spinning off a standalone company not owned by Entergy
- Merging with Entergy La.
- Creating a city-run utility that is not operated independently of New Orleans' city government
In the wake of Hurricane Ida, all eight transmission lines coming into the city went down, plunging 100% of New Orleans into darkness before generators kicked on. For more than a week after the storm, Entergy linemen worked to restore power to the city.
During that time, an error-prone outage map and a lack of visible progress in many parts of the city frustrated residents.
After power was restored, Entergy faced renewed scrutiny from regulators and billpayers over a lack of maintenance to the electrical grid infrastructure in the city. While the French Quarter and some other isolated parts of the city have power lines buried underground, the utility has continuously refused to invest in burying the rest of the city's grid, saying it would be too costly.
The Utility Committee's meeting is scheduled for 10:30 in the City Council chambers.
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