New Orleans – Today, the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans provided an update on two power generating turbines, Turbine 4 and Turbine 5:

Both SWBNO teams and its contractors have been working diligently to stabilize the power generating redundancy ahead of the 2021 Hurricane Season. Last month, we brought Turbine 4 back online. Working with a machine built in 1915 will inevitability come with significant challenges. The commissioning of this machine was met with several issues and setbacks, which were addressed as quickly as possible.

As recently as rain event on Saturday, June 5, Turbine 4 tripped offline and could not be brought back on. The SWBNO team quickly diagnosed the issue as a problem with an electrical component of the machine and immediately contacted the appropriate vendor to make the repair.

The vendor was onsite yesterday, June 8, and determined that three electrical components need to be replaced. Because of the age of Turbine 4, we cannot source these parts off the shelf. Therefore, they must be custom made. The initial timeframe for the fabrication of these parts is approximately 8 weeks. We recognize that this timeframe takes us into the thick of Hurricane Season, which is why we are working with our contractor to investigate all possible options to expedite this process.

Additionally, as reported in SWBNO’s last Board Meeting, nationwide steel shortages are delaying the repairs to Turbine 5. Turbine 1, Frequency Changers and EMD’s will continue to be utilized as needed until repairs to Turbine 4 and Turbine 5 are completed.

While SWBNO teams and vendors are working hard to expedite the replacement of the parts for T4 and T5, these issues further validate our utility’s current path to modernize our power system through a dedicated Entergy substation and modern Turbines for redundancy.

“We know that fully modernizing our power generation system is key to both the future of this agency and this city,” said Ghassan Korban, Executive Director, Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans. “That is why we are working tirelessly, in coordination with Entergy, to bring a dedicated Entergy substation to our Carrollton Water Plant as we as bringing a new, state-of-the-art Turbine to our arsenal of power.”