The New Orleans City Council's Climate Change and Sustainability Committee convened on August 26, 2026, to approve routine items, vote on two Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) resolutions, receive a detailed briefing from Entergy New Orleans on the August 21–22 widespread power outages, and hear an update on the Uptown Railroad Quiet Zone. The committee unanimously approved the March 11, 2026 minutes and both IRP-related resolutions. Public testimony focused on communication failures during the outage and grid reliability concerns.
Council Member Royal Council Member King. Council Member Harris. Council Member McCarron. Here. We have a quarrel. All right. Thank you, members. Um, I will go ahead and approve the uh minutes of March eleventh, twenty twenty-six climate change meeting. Can I get a motion? Seconded by Council Member Harris, all those in favor. This is a resolution for the integrated resource plan rulemaking utility docket 2601. The integrated resource plan IRP rulemaking resolution is about modernizing or up and updating the council's integrated resource plan rules to reflect how the electric system is changing. The council's existing IRP rules were adopted in 2017. However, since then, the types and capabilities of distributed energy resources, or DERs, have evolved significantly, including customer sided generation, battery storage storage, demand response, distributed generation, and other technologies capable of supplying or modifying electrical demand. The objective of the IRP rulemaking resolution is to make sure the council's IRP planning process is not overlooked resources that can potentially serve customers, reduce system costs, improve reliability, or provide alternatives to traditional utility infrastructure. As such, the adoption of this resolution is essential to ensuring our 2027 IRP evaluates all of those distributed energy resources fairly and comprehensively. Are there any questions or comments? Anybody? Okay, I will move to approve. Second of my councilmember Harris, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Okay, the second item we have item number four. This is the resolution to actually initiate the plan. This this committee, uh, we will we're considering a relation resolution to establish the procedural schedule for the 2027 um integrated resource plan. So this one will formally begin the council's triannual uh process through which the council evaluates how entergy New Orleans ENO should plan to meet the city's future electricity needs while considering cost, reliability, resilience, environmental impacts, and customer interests. The 2027 IRP emphasizes transparency and meaningful public participation, as well as establishes multiple technical and public meetings throughout the process, including opportunities for the public to learn about the IRP, ask questions, and provide comments on the record. Um this is about making sure New Orleans plans for its energy futures deliberately and transparently. We certainly want an electric system that is reliable and resilient, but also one that appropriately considers energy efficiency, renewable resources, distributed energy resources, and the needs of our customers. This process gives the council stakeholders stakeholders and public an option to rigorously evaluate entergy New Orleans resource choices before decisions are made about the city's energy future. Any questions? Okay, I will move. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay, perfect. Okay, next up we have uh agenda item five, entergy New Orleans. Um provide an update on the widespread power outages that occurred across the city uh August 21st and 22nd. While you all are coming up to the table, I just have a few opening comments. Um thank you all for being here, obviously, and thank you. I see some members of the community out here. Um, to discuss the outages from Friday's thunderstorms. Um as regulators, we don't just represent our districts, we represent the entire city. So whether an outage occurs in my district in District A or in Algiers, uh we all share in the responsibility to ask the questions in a transparent way and hold the utility accountable. Last Friday, we had a severe thunderstorm event, and at its peak left 14,600 customers without power. Many for over four hours, and many in Algiers for over 28 hours. While this storm was intense, it was not unusual to our climate here. And we can and something that we can expect due to climate change that these storms and other extreme weather will continue to be a normal occurrence. Fair weather outages, severe outages like this continue to happen.