US, Louisiana, St. Bernard Parish: Entergy Louisiana has commenced a major grid resilience project in St. Bernard Parish aimed at improving network reliability and reducing the impact of severe weather on local communities and businesses.
The initiative forms part of the utility’s wider 10-year Resilience Plan, which will see around $2 B invested in strengthening electricity infrastructure across Louisiana. In St. Bernard Parish, approximately $13.5 M will be spent upgrading power lines and reinforcing or replacing around 640 distribution and transmission poles.
The new structures are designed to withstand wind speeds of up to 150 mph, helping the network better endure hurricanes and other extreme weather events. Entergy expects the improvements to reduce outage durations and support faster restoration efforts when storms occur.
The project is one element of a broader statewide programme that includes upgrades to roughly 5,214 km (3,240 mi) of power lines and 62,000 utility structures.
According to the utility, stronger infrastructure will also benefit key local industries, including port operations, manufacturing, petrochemicals and seafood processing, by reducing the risk of weather-related disruptions.
Entergy estimates the parish upgrades could avoid around $24 M in future storm restoration costs while delivering approximately $117.5 M in long-term maintenance and investment benefits over the next five decades.
Construction activities are expected to continue over the coming months as resilience improvements are rolled out across the parish.
Source: T&D World
