NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Entergy New Orleans has been awarded a $55 million federal grant from the United States Department of Energy, announced on Wednesday, Oct. 18.

The grant will fund Entergy’s “Line Hardening and Battery Microgrid” project, which aims to enhance local power grids against severe weather, like hurricanes and tornadoes, to reduce power outages.

Entergy officials said the benefits of the project include:

• Hardening the transmission of 97 structures, which is expected to prevent more than 564 million customer minutes of interruptions.
• Hardening the distribution of 381 structures, which is expected to prevent more than 45 million customer minutes of interruptions.
• Hardening and battery installation which will improve resilience during extreme weather situations, by reducing the expected frequency and time of outages due to electric infrastructure
• Deploying a line hardening and battery backup project, which will lower energy bills for communities.

The grant award also includes a community benefits plan that allows Entergy to work with community partners, like the New Orleans Career Center, the First72+ and Delgado Community College on workforce development programs.

It will also allow Entergy to work alongside the Community Benefits Advisory Board to ensure that customers in the area remain informed of construction updates.  

“This is a huge win for our customers, for our community, and for the City of New Orleans,” said CEO of Entergy New Orleans Deanna Rodriguez. “Federal grant funds at this scale will enable us to make our grid stronger — to keep the lights on longer when storms threaten in the future, and to restore power more quickly when service is interrupted. These funds will help offset the cost burden on our customers.”

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