Entergy Arkansas has completed phase one of a comprehensive reliability and resiliency project in Little Rock. The recently completed work includes upgrades to both the transmission and distribution infrastructure for the electrical lines that serve the downtown Little Rock area, which is home to more than 40,000 Entergy Arkansas customers. These upgrades will provide reliable energy supply that can be restored quicker in the case of an outage.

Legacy transmission structures near 8^th street and Woodrow have been replaced with steel structures with newer and stronger conductors installed. The adjacent distribution circuit has been upgraded and rerouted away from the transmission structures, which will not only improve reliability in the area, but will also enhance power restoration capabilities and improve safety and work practices for Entergy Arkansas line workers.

“This project represents an investment of both time and resources to improve reliability for customers in this area,” said Adam Effrein, vice president of power delivery for Entergy Arkansas. “These improvements will result in fewer overall outages and faster restoration times when an outage is inevitable.”

The recent work is part of an ongoing project to enhance the resiliency and reliability of the electrical systems in Little Rock. Future phases will extend the transmission upgrades from downtown all the way to West Little Rock. Infrastructure enhancements will include overhead transmission lines and substation equipment, improving efficiency and reliability for customers all across the city.

Approximately eight miles of high- and low-voltage power lines in total will be upgraded over the next few years. Additionally, Entergy Arkansas will upgrade line terminals, equipment and enhanced protection schemes at all substations in Little Rock’s central business district.

Entergy Arkansas is continually and steadily making significant investments in upgrading and strengthening our power generation, transmission, and distribution systems, including enhancements to how our facilities are designed, built, and maintained. With respect to our transmission and distribution systems in particular, we’ve significantly increased the wind standard to which new equipment is built.

“We’re always adapting our material and construction standards, which includes using stronger poles, fiberglass crossarms and improved configuration or placement of equipment,” said Effrein. “We’re not only replacing older or damaged assets with new ones, but we are also replacing them with equipment that is stronger and more resilient.”

Planned resiliency efforts include additional projects like this one in downtown Little Rock, more frequent inspection and maintenance, enhanced vegetation management, hardening and upgrading equipment, and other efforts that will help improve the resilience of our system while maintaining low-cost, reliable energy.

To learn more about Entergy Arkansas’ plans for reliability and resiliency throughout the state, visit our website here.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – In ongoing, comprehensive efforts to enhance the resiliency and reliability of the electrical systems in Little Rock, work will soon begin in the downtown Little Rock and surrounding area.

The first phase of this multi-phase project is taking place over the next few months in an area that is home to more than 40,000 Entergy Arkansas customers.

This comprehensive project includes transmission infrastructure upgrades to lines that serve the downtown area that will provide abundant power that can be restored quicker in the case of an outage. Future phases will extend the transmission upgrades from downtown all the way to West Little Rock.  Infrastructure upgrades will include overhead transmission lines and substation equipment, increasing capacity and reliability across the city.  

Approximately eight miles of high- and low-voltage power lines will be upgraded over the next few years. Additionally, Entergy Arkansas will upgrade line terminals and equipment at all substations in Little Rock’s central business district.

We do not anticipate any interruption to service as work takes place, but Entergy Arkansas will communicate with affected customers should an outage be needed.

Meanwhile, some periodic road closures will be required during portions of the projects. The first such road closure will occur between Oct. 14 and Oct. 24 near 8^th and Woodrow streets. Signs will be posted and proper traffic control measures will be taken to minimize disruption to travelers.

About Entergy Arkansas

Entergy Arkansas, LLC provides electricity to approximately 730,000 customers in 63 counties. Entergy Arkansas is a subsidiary of ���ϳԹ���, a Fortune 500 electric company. Entergy powers life for 3 million customers through our operating companies in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. We’re investing in the reliability and resilience of the energy system while helping our region transition to cleaner, more efficient energy solutions. With roots in our communities for more than 100 years, Entergy is a nationally recognized leader in sustainability and corporate citizenship. Since 2018, we have delivered more than $100 million in economic benefits each year to local communities through philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy. Entergy is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has approximately 12,000 employees. For the latest news from Entergy Arkansas, visit the and connect with @EntergyArk on social media.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – If it weren’t for construction of Remmel and Carpenter dams a century ago, some of the state’s greatest recreation areas may not exist. As Remmel Dam marks its 100^th anniversary, community and company leaders gathered at Lake Catherine to celebrate the decades of reliable, clean energy the dam provides.

Constructed and first brought online by Arkansas Power and Light Company in 1924, Remmel Dam is located on the Ouachita River near Jones Mills in Hot Spring County. Together with Carpenter Dam in Hot Springs, they provide hydroelectric power for the natural state and form lakes Catherine and Hamilton

”Remmel Dam is an essential part of Entergy Arkansas’ diverse fuel mix portfolio,” said William Cunningham, director of resource planning for Entergy Arkansas. “Harnessing the hydroelectric power enhances our clean energy offerings and positions us well for future power generation needs.”

Senior leadership from Entergy Arkansas, Entergy Power Generation, family members of AP&L founder Harvey Couch and current employees working at Remmel Dam gathered with state and local officials and members of the community to celebrate the dam’s centennial anniversary this morning at the dam site in Malvern. Festivities included a dedication recognizing Remmel Dam’s place in Arkansas and Entergy history, guided tours of the dam site and a pop-up museum of artifacts, information and photos.

Tours of Remmel Dam will be given to Entergy Arkansas employees and retirees throughout this week, and area schools have scheduled tours the last week in April. The dam will be open to the public for guided tours June 10-13. Visitors should wear closed toed shoes if they are interested in visiting the dam up close.

Couch founded AP&L in 1913. Three years later, he was approached by Flave Carpenter about building dams on the Ouachita River to harness hydroelectric power.

Remmel Dam was one of the first major sources of power generation for AP&L. It was the third generation site built by Harvey Couch and the only one still operating today, with many original parts, in service for Entergy. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The lake and surrounding area created by Remmel Dam has been a great source of tourism and economic development for the state.

Remmel Dam is named after Colonel Harmon L. Remmel, a friend of Harvey Couch who helped facilitate meetings in Washington D.C. for Couch to obtain licensing and permission to build the dam. Construction on the dam began in May 1923 and was completed in December 1924 at a total cost of $2,142,000.

“The benefits that Remmel Dam has brought to the Malvern and Hot Springs area are numerous,” said Kimberly Bogart, lakes manager for Carpenter and Remmel Dams. “The dams were originally intended to help bring reliable low-cost electrical power to the state, but now also serve multiple purposes including fisheries and especially recreation/tourism. Hot Springs is the number one tourist destination in the state of Arkansas and one of the major draws is the area lakes, which all started with Remmel Dam and Lake Catherine.

Today, power from Remmel Dam services not only Entergy Arkansas, but is also interconnected to the Entergy power grid. Entergy Arkansas plans to continue maximizing the dam’s ability to provide safe and reliable hydroelectric power to the state of Arkansas for the next century.

“With one hundred years in service, the dam boasts a legacy of rich history and community partnership,” said Bogart. We are looking forward to building on this legacy and continuing to be a valued resource for Entergy Arkansas and the state for years to come.”

About Entergy Arkansas

Entergy Arkansas, LLC provides electricity to approximately 730,000 customers in 63 counties. Entergy Arkansas is a subsidiary of ���ϳԹ���, a Fortune 500 electric company. Entergy powers life for 3 million customers through our operating companies in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. We’re investing in the reliability and resilience of the energy system while helping our region transition to cleaner, more efficient energy solutions. With roots in our communities for more than 100 years, Entergy is a nationally recognized leader in sustainability and corporate citizenship. Since 2018, we have delivered more than $100 million in economic benefits each year to local communities through philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy. Entergy is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has approximately 12,000 employees. For the latest news from Entergy Arkansas, visit the and connect with @EntergyArk on social media.

Entergy Arkansas has a 48-mile stretch of transmission line from Parkin to Newport. Crops are still in the fields, and in this area there are numerous bodies of water. So, there’s food to eat, water to drink, and 48 miles of power lines on which the well-fed birds like to perch and sleep.

And all is well. Until about 4 a.m. when they wake up. “You can almost set your watch by it,” said Customer Service Manager Matt Faries. The birds – thousands of them – open their eyes, stretch their wings and take flight. As they lift off, they relieve themselves on whatever lies below, including electrical components. These components include strings of ceramic and polymer insulators that keep energized wires safely separate from one another.

Layers of droppings have landed and dried on the insulators. Even that is not a problem, except in the moment when there is a new, wet deposit. This can occur with additional excrement, but often occurs during periods of high humidity early in the morning hours.  At that moment – around 4 a.m. – electricity travels from one wire, through the excrement, to another wire, causing a fault on the line. This results in a protective breaker opening, causing a power outage. Fortunately, these breakers automatically attempt to re-close and re-energize the line when a fault occurs. This action sends a jolt of electricity that, as luck would have it, creates enough heat to dry the liquid waste, solving the problem. The outage lasts only a few seconds.

And even that wouldn’t be much of a problem except that on this line are some industrial customers running overnight shifts, and a blink for them causes a disruption in production. And it has happened every morning except Monday since Saturday, Aug. 21.

“This is an unusual convergence of circumstances,” Faries said. “This particular problem is very rare, but we are looking at options to mitigate the issue.”  

So, what to do?

“A good rain would really help by washing the muck from the insulators,” Faries said.

Fortunately, it’s reasonable to expect that the unusual problem will go away on its own, but Entergy is taking action now.

Using drone-mounted cameras, the transmission team has identified multiple structures with excessive bird contamination. Technicians have begun replacing Insulators on one of four line sections. The new insulator strings have an “umbrella” type of insulator on the top of the string to shelter the lower insulators from the next round of droppings. Each of the remaining three line sections will be removed from service, in turn, as several additional insulators are replacing in the coming weeks.   

Over the past five years, Entergy Arkansas has made reducing outages a priority – so much so we have invested over $700 million to reduce customer interruptions by over 40%. With this investment, we have strengthened our transmission system specifically to support load growth, reliability and keeping our customers’ costs low. So, what does this look like?  

We can keep our customer rates below the national and regional average by providing our system access to affordable power and dispersing it to communities across our state.

Since 2015, Entergy Arkansas completed 21 major transmission line rebuilds and new transmission line construction projects that have increased the capacity of our system as well as our ability to move energy economically and efficiently. Three projects have reduced energy production costs and energy losses. These efforts included upgrading transmission lines from ANO to Pleasant Hill substation to 500 kV, installing 500 kV lines in Mabelvale and upgrading transmission lines between Mabelvale, Bryant and South Bryant.

All completed between 2018 and 2019, these projects were focused on upgrading our transmission lines and replacing equipment. With these advancements, we were able to reduce congestion on our system and provide our customers cheaper, more reliable power.

Customers in Russellville, Brinkley, Crossett, El Dorado, Emerson and Magnolia were also among those who have benefited directly from some of these transmission infrastructure upgrades. These improvements helped give us access to wholesale electric markets and allow us to more efficiently and cost effectively deliver energy to our customers.

We invest to ensure our existing substations and structures continue to provide safe power to your homes and businesses. In the last five years, we have directed significant resources to update our equipment and patrol our lines with drones allowing us to quickly and safely restore power during an incident.

But our work is never done. We plan to allocate more than $39 million in 2021 to improve our transmission system so you can continue to have days without interruptions. We power life in Arkansas by investing in projects that benefit the customer and support the economic growth across our great state.

The UAS pilot program

In search of innovative solutions for inspections and patrols, Entergy’s transmission group developed a UAS pilot program to test the technology.

“After benchmarking utility peers and input from the , we knew the possible benefits of having engineers and field personnel use UAS as a tool on our system,” said Katie Robertson, transmission engineer and pilot program coordinator and participant. “The goal of the internal pilot program is to develop a standardized process to qualify and train transmission personnel to use this technology on our system in a controlled and safe manner.”

Robertson reached out to Dennis Lott, UAS program director at , located near Jackson, to develop a training program for employees. For the initial training, operation coordinators and engineers were nominated for the program, as these individuals have experience with inspections and responding to storms and outages.

Training

The employees in this program underwent intense training to receive their (FAA) certificates after completing a three day classroom training and sitting for the FAA exam. Prior to using UAS on the transmission system, an internal training requirement is in place for the pilots to perform an additional 20 hours of hands-on training, which is beyond FAA requirements. 

The training showed the engineers and operation coordinators a newer, safer approach to monitor transmission assets.

Dustin Cranford, transmission line supervisor in Arkansas, said, “There’s less exposure to right of way hazards with hazard identification when scoping for future jobs and storm response. We can use these for up close inspections on outages and trip/recloses. I believe as we work with these in the days to come we will find more applications and benefits of the drones.”

Echoing Cranford, Curtis Robertson, vegetation operations coordinator in Mississippi, said another safety benefit of utilizing the UAS technology is to “identify safety concerns related to a tree on the line that would not be visible any other way prior to sending tracked equipment in to remove the tree after the line has been grounded and tested.”

Robertson also suggested the team would be able to “conduct inspections in difficult to access locations due to terrain, which would reduce the potential for tripping hazards, snake and insect exposure, unknown water depths,” and other safety risks.

Next steps

Entergy’s transmission group currently has seven UASs for the operation coordinators and engineers to use across the system. The engineers will have a shared UAS with the ability to change the sensors to meet detailed reliability inspection needs. Participants in the pilot program will also look for opportunities to use their newly acquired skills and tools in their everyday jobs.

Lance Schumacher, a vegetation operations coordinator in Arkansas who is participating in the pilot program, commented on the opportunities for UAS in transmission. 

“The training opens your eyes to the airspace you are sharing and the responsibility that goes with it,” said Schumacher. “I believe we are just scratching the surface on how we will utilize the UAS on the job.”