A few years ago, Mississippi celebrated its bicentennial and this year Entergy Mississippi, formerly Mississippi Power & Light, recognizes our 100th anniversary. Our company has been a part of this state’s journey for almost half of its life.
Last week, I toured parts of the Entergy Mississippi service area that were devastated by the recent tornado outbreak, including Rolling Fork, Silver City and Winona. It was destruction that I have never seen in my time at Entergy or in my personal life as a Mississippian. It was an emotional day as I also met with families who have been left homeless, community leaders who are faced with the overwhelming task of rebuilding, and survivors who told heartbreaking stories of loved ones lost forever.
At Entergy Mississippi we think a lot about the future. Why? Because we are not only tasked by the State of Mississippi with providing you power today, but also with having plans in place to ensure you have safe, reliable and affordable power years from now.
As anyone who has gone to a grocery store lately knows, prices are continuing to go up. The same is true with the costs related to generating and delivering electricity. Because of this, we at Entergy Mississippi want to give customers the tools and resources needed to manage rising power bills.
Like most things these days, the material costs related to generating and delivering your power have gone up recently. Almost 70% of the energy produced by Entergy Mississippi comes from natural gas which has seen its pricing double over the last year and become much more volatile. Since our costs to buy natural gas are passed through to customers (with no profit to the company), customer bills have gone up as a result. While our customer rates are still below the U.S. average, Entergy Mississippi is taking real action to keep this and other inflationary business cost increases from making your power bill unaffordable. Here are just five of the steps we have taken:
February’s historic winter storm was the worst such event to hit Mississippi in 25 years. The two waves of frozen precipitation, long-lasting, record cold and large area of impact made it one of Entergy’s most challenging power generation and power restoration events on record. More than 90,000 Mississippi customers lost power due to the weather.
Entergy Mississippi commemorates 20 years of its low-income customer initiative
Because of COVID-19, children in American cities and suburbs are attending school at home through a laptop. Regrettably, other students across rural America cannot watch their instructors’ lessons because there is no broadband access. This pandemic has brought into clear focus how much we all depend on the Internet and the urban versus rural disparity of those connections.
The men and women of Entergy Mississippi are always here when our state needs us – and that is even more true in times like this. That is why in addition to providing safe, reliable and affordable electricity to those sheltering in place at home during the peak of a spring storm season, our people are also working on solutions to help our customers and communities hurt by the financial hardship brought about during the COVID-19 pandemic.
These are unprecedented times for all of us, and at Entergy Mississippi we take the health, safety and security of our customers, communities, employees and business partners very seriously. We are committed to powering our customers and communities regardless of the circumstance.