Entergy Corp. began construction last month on two $23 million transmission operations centers in Little Rock and in Jackson, Miss., that will consolidate work now being done in six smaller centers in the company's four-state service area.
The two buildings "will be nerve centers where employees monitor the status of the transmission system, coordinate line outages for maintenance or repair and operate switches and breakers at substations," said David Lewis, an Entergy spokesman.
There will be about 70 employees at each center, Lewis said.
Entergy is making the change to improve its operations, enhance storm response and mitigate weather risks.
The Little Rock center is being built at 13019 Vimy Ridge Road in southwest Little Rock, near an existing substation.
"One of the current facilities we have is near the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans," Lewis said. "That facility, of course, is more susceptible to tropical storms and hurricanes. We learned that with [hurricanes] Katrina and Rita. So moving these functions farther from the Gulf allows us to reduce risks from such events."
It makes sense for Entergy to put the operations in two main centers, said David Cruthirds, a Houston regulatory lawyer and publisher of energy newsletter "The Cruthirds Report."
"From an emergency management and disaster-recovery standpoint, it probably makes sense to get it off the Gulf," Cruthirds said. "From a cost-efficiency and coordination standpoint, it probably makes sense to get out of smaller offices into two bigger offices."
Hurricanes are not a common concern in Little Rock and Jackson, but tornadoes are. The two centers will be built to withstand the effects of most tornadoes, Lewis said.
The centers are designed to support the reliability of the Entergy transmission system, said John Bethel, executive director of the general staff of the Arkansas Public Service Commission.
The two buildings "are the result of a long-term plan to provide more reliable and efficient transmission service for our customers," Rick Riley, Energy's vice president of transmission, said in a prepared statement.
Entergy will invest about $900 million over the next five years on transmission lines, substations and equipment, Hugh McDonald, chief executive officer of Entergy Arkansas, said in a prepared statement.
Consolidating the six facilities into two will result in significant cost savings, Entergy said in a statement. Among the savings is the reduction in costs of maintaining two facilities versus maintaining six, the firm said.
Entergy's primary system operations center is in Pine Bluff, Lewis said.
Many of those employees in Pine Bluff will work in the new Little Rock center, Lewis said. Many of the employees in Pine Bluff already live in the Little Rock area, Lewis said.
Entergy studied the impact on employees of moving the center to Little Rock, Lewis said.
"The net conclusion was that it will inconvenience some employees but work to the advantage of some others," Lewis said. "In the end, it was deemed to be the right thing to do to put the center in Little Rock."
The Little Rock and Jackson buildings are scheduled to be completed in the summer 2016.
Entergy delivers electricity to about 2.8 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. In Arkansas, the company has about 700,000 customers.
Business on 12/27/2014