Entergy Arkansas receives DOE grant awards for two hydroelectric projects

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Entergy Arkansas receives DOE grant awards for two hydroelectric projects

10/02/2024

Entergy Arkansas has been awarded grant funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for two hydroelectric projects at the Carpenter and Remmel Dams.

Entergy Arkansas submitted grant applications for the two projects through the DOE's Grid Deployment Office grant program. The program pays for 30% of the costs of capital improvement projects with the goals of maintaining and enhancing existing hydroelectric facilities. The projects will help ensure Entergy Arkansas can continue generating clean electricity at the dams for years to come.

"Hydroelectricity is the largest supplier of renewable energy in power generation, and many of the assets across the industry are aging facilities," said Braxton Bennett, senior plant manager for Entergy Arkansas. "Investing in the Remmel and Carpenter dams provides multiple benefits for Entergy and our customers. As safety is a top priority, these capital investments allow us to increase the reliability of our equipment used for generation and lake level control to ensure the public remains safe from the threats of flood conditions and allows for the continuous recreational use of Lake Hamilton and Lake Catherine. They also allow for operations personnel to respond to grid conditions in a more agile manner with updated technology."

The Carpenter-Remmel Grid Resiliency Project was awarded $978,138 to upgrade the control valves in both the Carpenter and Remmel facilities, upgrade and replace the Carpenter Dam's programmable logic controller human machine interface system with an advanced control technology, and to collocate the Carpenter and Remmel facilities control system to an offsite location. Benefits of the project include the ability to start/stop the turbine units remotely, with little to no ramp up time, which will increase Carpenter-Remmel's available power generation.

The Remmel Dam Safety Project was also awarded $1,877,216 to proactively improve safety at the Remmel Dam facility, including some concrete repair on the dam gate decks and installing a new remotely operated gate hoist. Being able to remotely operate the gate improves the operator's ability to safely maintain water levels, adjust to changing river flows, and intervene during a major storm event - all of which help ensure the safe operation of the dam even in extreme weather conditions. This year marks the 100^th anniversary of Remmel Dam providing safe, reliable power to customers.

Funding for the projects comes from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and is part of the first round of grants awarded to nearly three hundred hydroelectric improvement projects. Work on both projects is expected to begin later this year and expected to be complete within three years.

These grants from the DOE are part of Entergy's larger strategy to pursue state federal and state funding opportunity available to Entergy and our partners to support maintaining and improving the electrical infrastructure in our service areas.

"Receiving funding for large infrastructure projects helps reduce costs for customers," said Laura Landreaux, president and CEO of Entergy Arkansas. "This also allows Entergy to redeploy our capital dollars toward more projects across Entergy Arkansas so we can keep our electrical grid resilient and safe while providing additional value to our customers."

Entergy Arkansas also has a grant application under consideration with DOE for funding for resilience and hardening projects through their competitive Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program - in 2023, another Entergy operating company, Entergy New Orleans, was awarded $55 million in matching federal funds through the GRIP grant program. Entergy Arkansas is also awaiting the results of three applications to the State of Arkansas' Grid Enhancement Grant Subaward program, which was funded through the BIL's 40101(d) state Grid Resilience Grant program. Both programs are expected to announce awardees this fall.

Our efforts to ensure that our communities receive a fair share of federal funding don't stop with the programs for which Entergy is eligible as the direct recipient - we also work with external stakeholders to help them access funding opportunities beyond Entergy's scope, such as the DOE's Grid Innovation Program for state governments and Historically Black Colleges and Universities Clean Energy Education Prize program for HBCUs.