Entergy Proposes New Storm Fee for Hurricane Francine Recovery Costs
Entergy Louisiana seeks to charge customers a storm fee to recover over $182 million spent on Hurricane Francine repairs
Entergy, Hurricane Francine, Louisiana, Storm Fee, Power Outages
Thibodaux: So, Entergy Louisiana is looking to add a new storm fee to our electric bills. They want to recover the costs from Hurricane Francine, which hit us pretty hard.
They’re asking the Louisiana Public Service Commission for permission to charge us over $182 million. That’s a lot of cash, right? The fee will depend on how much electricity you use each month.
For an average home using about 1,500 kilowatt-hours, it could be around $1.10 extra each month. If you use less, like 1,000 kilowatt-hours, it might be about $0.80. Not too bad, but still, it adds up.
Hurricane Francine made landfall on September 11, 2024, and knocked out power for over 250,000 customers. Thankfully, Entergy got most of us back online pretty quickly.
They had around 8,000 crew members working to restore power, and they managed to get 90% of us back on within three days. That’s impressive compared to past storms.
Entergy credits their recent upgrades to the power grid for the quick recovery. After Hurricane Laura in 2020, they faced a lot of heat for how long it took to restore power.
Brandon Scardigli from Entergy mentioned that the improvements made after Hurricane Ida in 2021 really helped during Francine. He said we need to keep investing in our power grid to avoid future outages.
Right now, Entergy has enough funds in their storm escrow account to cover the costs from Francine. But if they use it all up, they might be in trouble for the next storm.
We’re no strangers to these storm recovery fees. We’re still paying off costs from other storms like Hurricane Isaac and Hurricane Ida. All those fees together can add up to about $20 a month for an average home.
Commissioner Davante Lewis isn’t fully convinced we should be charged this new fee. He wants to look into whether we should fund storm recovery before a storm hits instead of after.
The commission is set to meet on January 15, and they’ll likely hire someone to review Entergy’s request. Usually, these requests get approved, though.
It’ll also be the first meeting for a new commissioner, Jean-Paul Coussan, who’s just getting up to speed on everything. He’s meeting with staff to prepare for the discussion.
So, we’ll see what happens next week. Stay tuned!