Just wait until we put more EVs on the grib! Rollin’ blackouts will be an erryday thing
What is up with Entergy?...
- Thread starter dawgstudent
- Start date
That entire industry of supplying power is about to change significantly in our favor. That may have something to do with it. Being prepared to eliminate many more, they prolly started early.
I do not know much about Entergy but can say with certainty that the utility industry as a whole has gotten very old when it comes to its employees. Many top notch, knowledgeable people are retiring now or have already. Some utilities have not missed a beat, but others have struggled to keep things going as before. Power restoration can be a complicated, slow process. Sometimes it is a straightforward solution and at other times it is quite difficult, pressurized process. My guess is there are a lot of folks trying to get things back to normal. Some of them are probably getting quite sleepy by now, too.
Just to clarify, Entergy is not "government." They are a federal/state government level protected utility monopoly organized as a privately funded corporation. They have shareholders and an investor base with return on investment expectations.
Does anybody on here have a Natural Gas generator ? Where'd you get it and are you pleased ? Yall got me thinking.
Our issue is the pole in our yard only services us. So they are going to power the masses before us. Like your situation i guess. But the main power station between Shreveport and our area was destroyed also. So they have to get that going also
I don’t but I’ve researched them quite a bit. Generac is probably the most popular, at least in this area. Onan is another option. I’ve had Onans in five RVs with very little problems. I’ve owned one small Generac and it was a pos, but I’d still probably buy a Generac whole house generator just because there is a larger amount of dealers and service. I don’t have access to natural gas so I’d have to use LPG which I already have or go with diesel and do something for fuel.
Mine went off for three hours yesterday and two hours last night. I was told that the crews don't go to whatever area that got cut off first. They will go to a area that will bring up the most homes with one fix. If not many homes in your parents' neighborhood it could be last.
Someone on the reddit machine claims Entergy has cut roughly 2,000 over the past few yrs. Granted, even if true they wouldn't all be linemen
That's about to become more due to budget cuts. There is a group currently evaluating all positions at Entergy due to budget constraints in the next few years.
And that's all on top of the big round of layoffs they did back in 2013-2014.
I've got a few friends in the utility industry. Power restoration is difficult, sometimes extremely dangerous work and it can take time to do safely. But there's no real excuse for not being as transparent as possible. It would suck to be without power for several days but I'd rather know that's likely the case so I can plan around that than wake up each day wondering if "today's the day!"
Sounds like the Commish has the same questions
PSC Commish Calls Out Entergy Over Slow Response
Mississippi Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey issued the following statement.
kingfish1935.blogspot.com
We had our stand by generator installed 6 years ago. It has been well worth the investment.
I went to Warner-Tully this morning from Vicksburg and back and saw a single person working on the lines. Lines were down on at least 20 poles along the way.
On the way, we saw about 30 contractors and about 10 trucks in a church parking lot just standing around.
As I understand it they are heavily regulated on how much “profit” they can make and it is a percentage of capital investments. Therefore you should be in the business of selling something for them to “invest” in. They are absolutely loaded with capital, from what I understand. And they pay employees pretty well.
Read/search the home/gaerden side of tigerdroppings. Cajuns know generators like I know Twix bars. There are additional factors you may have to consider like soft start kits on HVAC, etc.
I have the Firman tri fuel from Costco ($700ish). It is not whole house but portable. I only run it on propane.
I was quoted $11k for a whole house Generac about a year ago. Wishing I'd pulled the trigger on it then but we opted to replace the camper we'd sold to afford 2021 Omaha tix. Power at my house went out Friday AM and just came back on around 6AM today.
Traffic signals and streetlights must be out as well. Any increase in traffic accidents or crime?
Don’t use logic here. Let these guys continue to complain.
Fact is it was a widespread event with a large spatial footprint. Yet it was a relatively unimpressive system as a whole so resources weren’t pulled in from other states like they are after a tropical storm or ice storm. Couple that with the fact that as soon as they’d have an opportunity to get out to make repairs, another round would come through. It’s just been a very untimely and non-normal weather pattern. Any crews that would get pulled from Southern Power/TVA areas or Texas can’t come plug in because they are dealing with the same thing on their system.
Gotta get them transmission lines back in service and then the 3-phase distributions in before anyone can get to me-maws single phase at the end of the rural road.
Wrong. My company has personally worked on 7 transmission lines that went down in some capacity and that’s just in the metro area. And we are just a small-time subcontractor.
ETA: but your point remains true. Most outages have been direct damage to distribution.
100% true. I haven’t personally seen this much widespread tree damage in a long time. I would venture to say that the overall footprint of this round of systems has been larger than the typical tropical storm.
Too many people lose sight of the work of utility personnel. They are working their asses off.
There’s no way you can justify a generator like that from a cost benefit standpoint. The question is, how much is it worth to you to not go without power for a few days. I’ve been in my house for over 25 years and haven’t been without power for more than 2-3 weeks total. But it’s a huge pain in the *** when it happens.
Nowhere near the cost of the generator. Not saying you shouldn’t buy one. I wish I had one last weekend. Just saying it’s not a cost benefit decision.
I’m sure the supply chains are still screwed up which exacerbates a bad situation.
We looked at it and basically determined that if we took the money a whole house generator would cost, we could probably invest that money and every time we actually had a significant power outage we could take decent vacation until the power came back on and never have to touch the principal. That said, all we really to keep it from being miserable is a generator that can run a window unit and a coffee maker. We have a gas hot water heater, gas stove, and a grill obviously. Sucks to have a freezer full of meat thaw out, but there are worse things than hanging out and cooking out and being hot. As long as I have AC to sleep in and can wake up to hot coffee, I'm good.
That said, I'm not on Entergy's service or in the country. If we keep loading up our grid with enough solar to make it unreliable, the calculations on that will change. I would do the whole house generator with an underground tank if it were an option if I were in California or even Texas. If underground tank is not an option, I'd at least want dual fuel.
Very good points. If I lived in CA, that generator could pay for itself. Well, at least until they outlaw generators in CA.
We had one installed about 2 years ago. Worth every penny spent. For some reason, our house is the most popular one with the family during outages.
Part of the problem has been that they are repairing lines… and then another storm passed and they were having to backtrack and fix them again.
That take seems optimistic as hell to me. I think the traditional business of generating, transmitting, and distributing electric energy is going to continue to get less desirable and consumers are going to continue to see grid reliability and service deteriorate. People with means will be able to mitigate the harm with whole house generators (although don't take the natural gas supply for granted either) and possibly solar with battery packs and inverters. Going to suck for people without means.
I used to work for an unamed company doing quotes for generator sales until we went bankrupt. Apparently my boss couldn't manage money well. We sold several different types including Generac. Cummins is the quietest one on the market but they only go up to 20 KW for home units, above that you need an industrial unit. Generacs are the big Kahuna on the market, easy for parts, service, etc. Quality is pretty good. For an average size home (16KW to 24KW) expect to pay $10K to $14K installed or thereabouts. Price depends upon generator size and how easy/difficult your particular install is. Prices have probably gone up in the past year so this info may be outdated.