Kurt Luker—an operations coordinator with Entergy—said in a March 1 interview that areas have been identified as problem areas, receiving the least amount of reliable service. As such, Luker said to combat this, Entergy has begun rebuilding its most aging and problematic sections within Conroe. Luker said Entergy is also installing protective devices to help minimize outages when problems—such as storms or public-inflicted damages on the system—do occur.
“By doing these projects, we are upgrading our system from a dated standard to our newest standards,” Luker said. “Our newest standards include high wind mitigation that will help in the hurricane season that we are all familiar with living close to the Gulf Coast.”
Luker said Entergy has kept record of the power lines that have either had the most outages or are the oldest lines in the area to assess where reliability can be improved. Luker said he is working on infrastructure in the area of Avenue M in Conroe to east of Loop 336, as well as from Avenue M and FM 3083 north all the way to Hwy. 105.
Entergy previously completed construction on a 993-megawatt power station in Willis in 2021 to improve reliability across Montgomery County, Community Impact reported.
Luker said in order to carry out these reliability projects, consumers may face some power outages within the affected areas. He said these outages are needed to protect the safety of the workers and ensure the best work is being done.
“I would ask the community to be patient with us during the process,” Luker said. “Nobody likes the lights going out, I get it. ... Be patient with us, and when we get through this the customers will see an improvement in the reliability of their electricity at that time.”
The reliability projects are projected to be complete by the end of the fourth quarter in 2023, Senior Communications Specialist Katie Rogers said. Financial details for the project were not available before publication.
