Fed up with repeated power outages, New Orleans officials seek answers from Entergy

New Orleans officials on Tuesday probed Entergy on why the city has experienced a spike in power outages this year, especially during fair weather, airing a longstanding gripe of residents and business owners who lament the lights going out on sunny days.

Those exasperated with recent outages aren’t imagining anything: Data show such events have gotten more frequent. Through the first quarter of this year, outages for the local electric grid were up 60% compared to the same period last year, according to reports Entergy submitted to the city.

In all, there have been nearly 1,600 outages so far this year, affecting more than 177,000 households and businesses, according to council staff. 

City Council members, alarmed by complaints from residents and Entergy’s own data, told utility officials they need to improve.

“I’m tired of being eaten up by my neighbors on these issues that have been going on for such a long time,” said Councilmember Joe Giarrusso, who counted at least four fair-weather outages affecting upwards of 17,000 people in his district in recent months.

No easy answers materialized Tuesday. Entergy leaders blamed the outages largely on an increase in lightning strikes, though council advisors said the data doesn’t support that, instead pointing to equipment failures as a bigger problem.

Steven Benyard, vice president of reliability at Entergy New Orleans, said weather has had a “major impact” on the grid, and that a manufacturing defect in some key components of substations have caused issues. And he noted New Orleans has more restrictions around trimming trees than other parishes in Louisiana, making it more difficult to prevent outages caused by vegetation.

Benyard also touted $68 million in projects aimed at improving reliability last year, and said crews are patrolling circuits to identify weak points amid an active storm season that already caused massive power outages in Houston.

‘Really disheartening’

Several residents submitted comments to the council Tuesday saying their lights frequently go out without warning, sometimes for hours at a time.

The operators of one Mid-City restaurant are exasperated with their electric situation. Vassiliki Ellwood Yiagazis and Lauren Lynch joined forces to open Smoke & Honey about six months ago, turning a popular pop-up into a full-fledged restaurant selling gyros and hot smoked salmon, with drinks from a satellite of Coffee Science.

The place was gaining momentum heading into the dog days of summer when problems with Entergy began popping up.

The duo said flickering power service created problems with card readers, and repeated outages in recent months have forced them to shut their doors several times.

Then a problematic power line prevented them from making a needed repair in the kitchen, and Entergy hesitated to relocate it, asserting the building’s equipment was improperly installed, they said. After 12 days of closures, they said Entergy finally relocated it.

Ellwood Yiagazis estimates the business has lost $40,000 between employee wages, spoiled food and lost revenue from the closures.

“We lost half our team due to this,” she said. “It was so unpredictable and we didn’t have any answers.”

“The amount of things that we’ve dealt with in such a short amount of time is overwhelming,” Lynch added. “It’s really disheartening.”

Entergy spokesperson Beau Tidwell said Entergy’s records show one “unplanned” outage at the restaurant’s location in recent years, when construction work by another utility knocked down a pole. He said the utility is working with the property owner to resolve the issue with the restaurant’s hood, which he said was installed too close to one of Entergy’s lines. 

David Demarest, who owns the building as well as Bayou Beer Garden and Bayou Wine Garden next door, echoed the sentiment of the Smoke & Honey owners. Demarest said he’s had to shut down his businesses for four days in June and July because of power outages.

“It’s very frustrating in what’s already a rainy, hot, slow summer,” he said. “It’s very difficult to run a business right now.”

Officials with the company told the council Tuesday that it recently became aware that some of its lightning arrestors — which are designed to mitigate lightning strikes to equipment — were defective. Tidwell said the company has identified 165 defective arrestors and replaced 27 so far. 

Data provided by Entergy shows more than 42% of outages this year have been during “fair weather.” But Tidwell said some of those can be attributed to previous storm damage. 

“Additionally, heat also plays a significant factor in creating strain on equipment, and the historic high temperatures last summer and this year have contributed to more frequent unplanned outages, along with vegetation,” he said. 

The City Council, which regulates Entergy, has long chided the utility for outages, especially after Hurricane Ida left many in the dark for weeks. But a $1 million fine levied by the city for reliability problems was held up in court, and the council eventually opted to set up reliability standards that could eventually result in fines.

However, Entergy has not yet run afoul of those standards, staff said on Tuesday.

Entergy has sought to win approval for a massive plan to bolster the electric grid after Ida exposed its fragility. But the council has so far refused to approve the bulk of the plan, arguing residents who are already being squeezed by high utility and insurance costs shouldn’t be forced to pay more on their electric bill.

Jesse George, New Orleans policy director at the Alliance for Affordable Energy, called for the council to further increase reliability standards. He noted that over a third of the outages this year were because of equipment failures.

“This to me points to poor maintenance of equipment,” he said. “Ratepayers are still suffering.”