Answers to Conroe Courier questions re status of ETR Texas transmission system @ Rita 1-year anniversary.

What happened (when the lights went out in the West)?

Answer --  The portion of Entergy’s transmission system serving customers from western Louisiana to the western extent of its service territory in Texas was essentially knocked out of service.

The System Operations Center in Pine Bluff, working with the Transmission Operations Centers in Beaumont, West Monroe, LA and Little Rock reconfigured the transmission system to bring power in from the northern portion of the system while restoration of Rita’s damage was underway.

During this time, to maintain the stability of the transmission system, Entergy had to use rolling outages to manage the load down to the level that the damaged system could accommodate.

What steps have been taken (to improve the system) since a year ago?

Answer – The portion of the transmission system serving Entergy’s Texas customers has essentially been restored to pre-Rita capability.

In addition, a number of projects that are part of Entergy Texas' Western Region expansion plan have been completed and are in service.

These projects make the transmission system serving Entergy’s Texas customers more robust and are in anticipation of increasing demand in this area.

Completed projects include:

·        Static Var Compensator located at Porter

·        Capacitor Bank installed at the Dayton substation

·        Line 822  serving the Woodlands area

If a similar size/force hurricane were to strike, what could we expect and can anything be done to minimize the destruction?

Answer – Any speculation about the extent of damage from a similar size storm would be hypothetical. What can be said is that the experience Entergy’s Generation, Transmission and Distribution operations personnel gained during Rita and Katrina has been factored into the company’s emergency plans for major weather events.

The structures for the most part are much newer now, and might have slightly more resilience, but no two hurricanes have ever been identical in their destructive fury, so no one could make a good prediction.]  But no one can predict what impact another storm might have.