Entergy Mississippi is preparing to embark on the largest grid upgrade in the company’s history in an attempt to meet its customers’ power needs while also keeping rates from increasing.
The campaign, called “Superpower Mississippi,” aims to save customers millions in costs that otherwise would be included in future bills. Although Entergy Mississippi makes power reliability investments every year that are already included in customer bills, the utility provider plans to ask the Mississippi Public Service Commission to approve a 50% increase in total spending on grid improvements at no cost to customers. The upped investment is valued at around $300 million.
Per company officials, the spending increase is possible because of new revenues provided by Amazon and other large industrial investments in Mississippi. The investment will go toward a goal of cutting power outages for Entergy Mississippi customers in half within five years by making the system more reliable. The reliability work includes:
- Installing stronger poles that are designed to withstand extreme weather conditions
- Implementing more smart devices and real-time monitoring systems, and exploring additional self-healing networks that automatically identify faults, reroute power, and restore service faster
- Increasing tree-trimming and dead tree removal measures to help prevent and decrease outages throughout Entergy Mississippi’s service area
“Superpower Mississippi will transform the power grid like we’ve never seen before, with better power at a lower cost,” Entergy Mississippi president and CEO Haley Fisackerly said. “With this additional $300 million, we’re investing 50% more in reliability to reach a 50% reduction in outages, all at 0% added cost to our customers.”
Despite concerns from the public that the emerging presence of large data centers and other industrial facilities will cause rates to skyrocket, Entergy Mississippi assures that the new businesses will pay their fair share in maintaining and expanding the power grid. The utility company further asserted that the companies’ contributions will actually ease the financial burden on everyday ratepayers.
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“We were facing a moment where the growth in our service area was not moving as quickly as our projected costs, which would have resulted in significant rate increases,” Fisackerly continued. “The solution we needed – and found – was to attract growth to our service area in the form of a large customer that could help share in the costs to serve all our customers and bring down future costs for everyone.
“We appreciate Governor (Tate) Reeves and the Mississippi Legislature’s foresight to pass legislation that is bringing large customers, like Amazon, to the state. We’re also grateful for the Mississippi Public Service Commission continuing to ensure benefits for customers and provide oversight of these investments.”
Vegetation-related outages have increased in recent years due to the millions of dead trees caused by the 2023 drought and intensified severe weather, from thunderstorms to tornadoes. Outages caused by fallen trees, many of which are outside the areas Entergy Mississippi can trim, have nearly doubled in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the three-year average in the same time period before the drought. More than 25,000 dead trees have been trimmed this year as part of grid upkeep.
Entergy Mississippi customers can expect to see reliability work begin immediately across the utility’s 45-county service area and continue over the next five years, officials report.
