JACKSON, Miss. [AP] — Entergy Corp., as part of a plan to decentralize its operations from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, is opening a new transmission operations center in the Jackson area.
Entergy spokesman Michael Burns says that positions would be shifted from all of Entergy’s service areas in Louisiana and Arkansas. Some of the positions will involve transmission contractors, Burns said.
In April 2006, after locating its post-storm headquarters in Jackson, Entergy returned to New Orleans and announced a decentralization program for many of its operations. At that time, the company said it would shift some transmission functions to Jackson.
In October 2007, Entergy announced a $25 million plan to build a transmission operations center in Jackson that would bring in 200 employees.
To further decentralize its New Orleans operation, Entergy also established a billing center in Hammond, La., and an information technology operations center in Little Rock, Ark.
Burns says the decentralization plan had already been tested by hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008. “We set a record for the speed of restoration following those storms, which is a good indication that the plan is sound,” he says.
In addition to being forced to move its headquarters temporarily to Jackson following Katrina’s flooding, the Entergy New Orleans unit underwent bankruptcy reorganization after losing virtually its entire customer base due to the city’s evacuation.
Jackson also serves as the home of Entergy Nuclear, which operates six nuclear generators that produce power for the wholesale market. Entergy is trying to gain regulatory approval of a spinoff of those plants into a separate company to be known as Enexus Energy Corp.
