Entergy Shares Street Light Information at Terrebonne Council Meeting

Entergy Regional Customer Service Manager Al Galindo reported to the Terrebonne Parish Council last night regarding street light energization in the parish.

Galindo attended the meeting to give a better idea of the relationship between Entergy and Terrebonne Parish relating to streetlights which have been a huge topic at meetings since Hurricane Ida. He began by explaining the street light rate schedule that is on file with the Public Service Department of Louisiana. He explained the responsibilities that lie on Entergy for the energy and lamp service for systems that are owned by others, which does include ones owned by the parish. Essentially, the customer is Terrebonne Parish, which is referenced in the quoted rate schedule, “When customer owns, maintains and replaces all of the standards, fixtures, luminaries and all associated street lighting equipment and all underground cable or another wiring on the street lighting system, and Company shall furnish energy and lamp service only. Customer owned street lighting fixtures shall not be installed on Company’s overhead distribution system,” the schedule reads.

Simply put, the ‘customer’ is responsible for owning, maintaining, and replacing all of the standard fixtures along with associated street lighting equipment including poles, and underground cables. Entergy, as the company, shall furnish the energy which is the power supplied to the lamps, and when there’s a need for a lamp to be replaced, Entergy has a responsibility for making that repair, Galindo explained. He explained that the definition of a ‘lamp’ is the bulb inside the fixture which Entergy is responsible for repairing on Terrebonne Parish-owned street lights.

He then explained a rate schedule for new LED street lighting which was introduced a few years ago. The rate schedule is for if the parish wants to change out existing high-pressure sodium (the amber color fixtures) to LED lighting which Galindo said is more efficient and uses less energy. When the changes are made on this particular rate schedule, Galindo explained that Entergy is not able to fix the streetlight if it fails because there isn’t a lamp inside the LED streetlight. He explained that it’s diodes that the fixture operates under, so when the light goes out, it is the parish’s responsibility to make the repairs. “I wanted to make sure that as you start to convert Terrebonne Parish-owned street lights to non-LED to LED, you understand that this is the extinction with the rate schedule,” he said. There are some areas where the change has already started which will lower energy consumption and costs.

He addressed a question about Entergy taking over parish-owned streetlights, which he said they can do, however they would have to assess to convert them from parish-owned streetlights to Entergy-owned streetlights. What would happen is the areas would be assessed and engineering work would have to be done to ensure the particular facilities are up to the electrical standards they require. He went on to explain the distinction between decorative poles and Entergy-owned poles.

If it is a wooden pole, you can assume it is an Entergy-owned pole, he explained. However, if it is a fiberglass or steel pole, it is typically a parish-owned decorative pole. A decorative pole would also be those you see downtown that adds a little flare to the area. In Terrebonne Parish, there are roughly 8,578 poles of which 1,214 (14 percent) are parish-owned and 7,364 (86 percent) are Entergy-owned. This explanation helps break down responsibilities on who is responsible for fixing which poles in the area.

Galindo shared that he has seen internal messages about fixtures being destroyed by Hurricane Ida, some not even having a pole there anymore, “What we need to do is have our operations team and our lighting team meet with the Pubilc Utilities Director for Terrebonne Parish and really go through the street lights that need to be repaired,” he said.

As of Friday, October 7, there are 363 streetlight orders in the backlog for streetlights. Of those 363, 261 are still needing to be worked, and 102 lights have had issues. The issues include no voltage, network pole replacements, and bad fixtures that are owned by the parish, “We really need to sit down and review with the parish Utilities Director to make sure that what we’re showing as having an issue, the parish knows that it’s the same light fixture,” he said. He said he suspects that since the storm, there has been information that has not been reconciled between Terrebonne Parish and Entergy and they want to make sure that all information is relayed correctly.

Galindo also shared a Hurricane Ida report when it comes to lighting. Entergy billed 8,386 street lights in the parish  (both company and customer-owned) and did assessments on 99.4 percent through a third-party company. They found that around 4,896 (59 percent) of Terrebonne Parish street lights were either damaged or completely gone. Entergy provided Terrebonne Parish with $293,077 in bill credits from September 2021 to January 2022.  

Entergy has an app that residents can download that allows users to report outages and street light outages. Go to your smartphone’s app store to download the app to help out in getting the issues resolved.