New Orleans Power
New Orleans Power Station is a natural-gas-fired internal combustion engine plant in Orleans County (Parish), Louisiana, with seven operating generating units totaling 131.6 MW of nameplate capacity. The plant is owned and operated by Entergy New Orleans, LLC, the local electric utility subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. It is built on the site of the retired Michoud power plant in New Orleans East, using seven Wärtsilä 50SG reciprocating engines rated at roughly 18.8 MW apiece, and it entered commercial operation on May 31, 2020. The New Orleans City Council, which has sole authority to regulate retail electricity in the city, approved the project in 2018 after a contentious review that included a $5 million fine against Entergy over a lobbying scandal involving paid actors at council hearings. Marketed as a fast-starting peaking and black-start resource, the plant drew scrutiny after Hurricane Ida in August 2021, when it was not brought online until roughly two days after the storm knocked out all eight transmission lines into New Orleans, prompting a city council investigation. No whole-plant or partial-unit retirement is scheduled; all seven engines remain in service.