The U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program (GRIP), established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, has announced a federal funding of about $54 million to Entergy Texas for improving power grid resilience in Port Arthur’s Pear Ridge, Kolbs, and Lakeview neighborhoods.
The grant will support projects aimed to reduce outage durations, lessen storm costs and fasten recovery time following extreme weather events in Port Arthur, Texas. The award will match Entergy Texas’ investment on the project with $53.75 million in federal funding.
Benefits of Entergy Texas’ Port Arthur resilience project include:
- Increased resilience: Improving service resilience for approximately 7,000 homes and businesses by:
- Upgrading or burying 950 distribution structures;
- Reinforcing 57 transmission structures;
- Installing 14 devices to allow faster response to power outages; and
- Adding a self-healing microgrid with a large battery to manage short-term outages.
- Faster recovery: Reducing the time customers are without power after storms by approximately 257 million minutes over the next 50 years.
- Cost savings: Lowering storm recovery costs, saving an estimated $74 million over the next 50 years.
- Community support: Creating job and training opportunities for residents of disadvantaged Census areas.
The Port Arthur resilience project also addresses the need to improve infrastructure in the most affected areas by both extreme weather and social and economic challenges. While more than 94% of Port Arthur residents belong to federally recognized disadvantaged areas, the project will ensure the improvements to the grid are fairly distributed for the communities to access more reliable and affordable energy.
Entergy Texas has developed a multi-phased community benefits plan, which includes the creation of a Community Benefits Working Group made up of community partners, as part of the project. The working group will deliver additional benefits to the Port Arthur community, such as labor engagement, education and job training programs, and financial services to low-income families through partnerships with social services organizations.
