Baton Rouge General, Entergy Bring ‘Power Through’ Program to BR Area

BATON ROUGE, La. – Thursday, Baton Rouge General (BRG) will break ground on a project to bring whole-facility backup power to its Bluebonnet and Mid City hospitals. BRG is one of the first organizations in the Baton Rouge area to take advantage of Entergy’s Power Through Program, which provides power to essential community facilities during outages. The generators will also provide additional power to the grid in high-demand periods typically seen during extreme weather months.

Made possible through $9 million in State Capital outlay funding, as well as Power Through Program cost sharing and BRG funding, the state-of-the-art natural gas generator project is expected to be complete at both hospitals in 2025. Once complete, the hospitals will have access to full power for their facilities in emergencies. The generators are sized to restore all power in an outage, including non-essential areas. They will transition seamlessly, within seconds, causing little to no interruption to staff, patients and visitors.

“Patient care is an around-the-clock operation, and Baton Rouge General has been there to care for our community for over 100 years,” said BRG CEO Edgardo Tenreiro. “We care for some of the most vulnerable patients, especially in the NICU, behavioral health units and our Burn Center. With help from Entergy and the State of Louisiana, we can ensure patients and their families are comfortable and safe during emergencies, and that our staff has the tools to care for them no matter what comes our way.”

“Entergy is proud to partner with Baton Rouge General in bringing reliable backup power solutions to the community,” said Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO. “Ensuring uninterrupted care during emergencies is essential, and through the Power Through Program, we can help safeguard the well-being of patients and families when they need it most.”

When outages from hurricanes and other weather events affect the area, there’s often a greater need for healthcare services, many times from the surrounding communities. As part of regional emergency management protocols, BRG often receives patients during or after weather events. For example, with Hurricane Ida, BRG cared for ICU patients from an evacuating facility in the Port Fourchon area, and took on patients needing emergency care in our ERs.

The groundbreaking ceremony is set for Thursday, March 14 at 3 p.m. at BRG’s Bluebonnet campus, off Peyton Drive. 

For more information, visit brgeneral.org or entergy.com/powerthrough.

About Baton Rouge General Medical Center
Baton Rouge General Medical Center is the area’s first community hospital with over 600 licensed beds between three campuses. Baton Rouge General opened its doors in 1900, and has provided the Greater Baton Rouge community with high-quality healthcare for generations. An accredited teaching hospital since 1991, Baton Rouge General is affiliated with several medical school programs, and offers other medical education programs, including a School of Nursing, School of Radiologic Technology, Family Medicine Residency Program, Internal Medicine Residency Program, and Sports Medicine Fellowship Program. For more information, visit BRGeneral.org, find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/BatonRougeGeneral and follow us on Twitter @BRGeneral and Instagram @batonrougegeneral.

About Entergy Louisiana

Entergy Louisiana, LLC provides electric service to more than 1 million customers in 58 parishes and natural gas service to more than 94,000 customers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Entergy Louisiana is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR), an integrated energy company engaged in electric power production, transmission and retail distribution operations. Entergy delivers electricity to 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy owns and operates one of the cleanest large-scale U.S. power generating fleets with approximately 24,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 5,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, Entergy has annual revenues of $10 billion and approximately 12,000 employees.

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