NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Entergy Corp. (NYSE: ETR) today received the Edison Electric Institute's Emergency Assistance and Recovery Awards to recognize the company's outstanding power restoration efforts on behalf of its customers and for assisting a neighboring utility company in recovering from severe summer storms in 2015.
This is the 18th consecutive year EEI has awarded Entergy with a national storm restoration award. Including this year's honors, Entergy has received 24 awards from EEI for its restoration and mutual-assistance work.
"Regardless of the timing or location of a major storm, we stay ready to safely and quickly restore power to our customers," said Greg Grillo, system storm incident commander for Entergy. "We appreciate when other companies help us so we are quick to return the favor when requested."
Entergy earned the Emergency Recovery Award for its exemplary efforts in April 2015 to restore power to its customers in the wake of a derecho-like weather event that featured quarter-inch hail and straight-line winds of 70 to 80 miles per hour. These dangerous conditions generated more than 193,000 peak outages. Entergy employees and contractors devoted more than 275,000 worker-hours to safely and quickly restore service. Despite extensive damage and hazardous conditions, Entergy crews were able to achieve 99 percent restoration within five days of the storm's onset.
Entergy also earned the Emergency Assistance Award for helping to restore service in the Birmingham, Alabama area following severe thunderstorms in July, 2015. Company line workers and other professionals responded rapidly to calls for aid from Alabama Power Company. In total, 114 Entergy employees arrived in 76 company vehicles along with dozens of contractors to devote more than 9,200 worker-hours to recovery efforts. In responding to these severe weather events, crews endured downed trees and other dangerous conditions to help restore service quickly and safely.
Entergy remains the only company to have won either the Recovery or the Assistance Award, or both, in every year since the awards began in 1998. The awards are presented twice annually to EEI member companies to recognize their extraordinary efforts to restore power to customers and for assisting another utility company after service disruptions caused by severe weather conditions or other natural events. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges following a nomination process. The awards were presented during EEI's January CEO and Board of Directors meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.
"The dedicated crews from Entergy are truly deserving of this recognition for their tremendous efforts to restore service and lend assistance to a neighboring utility," said EEI President Tom Kuhn. "Entergy's restoration efforts and its assistance to Alabama Power are truly representative of our industry's unwavering commitment to customer service and mutual assistance."
EEI is the association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies. Its members provide electricity for 220 million Americans, operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and directly employ more than 500,000 workers. EEI has 70 international electric companies as Affiliate Members and 270 industry suppliers and related organizations as Associate Members.
Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including nearly 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power, making it one of the nation's leading nuclear generators. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $12 billion and approximately 13,000 employees.
Entergy's online address is entergy.com
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SOURCE Entergy Corporation