Monticello Live

While Arkansas has seen its first real spring in years, the oppressive heat of the summer will arrive soon enough, and farmers throughout the state will be preparing to irrigate when there is too much heat and too little rain.

The greatest demand for electricity occurs in the hottest summer months when customers are using air conditioning to cool their homes and businesses. This peak demand coincides with the time farmers are using electric pumps to supply water to their crops. Entergy Arkansas, Inc. has developed a program that both reduces peak demand and saves farmers money by shifting irrigation times away from the peak. In 2011, typical participants saved approximately $250 per pump during the months of June, July and August.

Here’s how the Agricultural Irrigation Load Control Program (AILC) works: the program is available to all Entergy Arkansas customers receiving electric service under the Agriculture Water Pumping Service tariff. Special meters and on/off switches are installed on the pumps on the participant’s farm. These switches are then activated using wireless signals. During the program period, Entergy will interrupt electric service to the pump for three hours each weekday between 12 p.m. and 9 p.m., excluding holidays. For participating farms, Entergy will apply the $4.16 per kilowatt credit to the bill for that service month, and the savings will be limited to 30 percent of the participant’s monthly base bill before adjustments.

Farmers can register any or all of their pumps, and the credits will occur over three months, as determined by the farmer’s normal billing date. The program will begin interruptions on the first weekday in June of each year and last through the end of August.

Entergy will monitor the farmer’s usage and send instant alerts to let him know when the pumps are switched off then back on.

It is important to note that it costs nothing to terminate participation in the AILC program. Farm customers are allowed to terminate their participation in AILC with written notice any time during the contract period. Entergy Arkansas then will rebill the pump account to indicate any credit that may have been received during the contract. No penalty fees will be assessed.

Interested farmers in Arkansas can get more information and register for the AILC program by:

Call: 800-324-4709

Email: arcscfarmers@entergy.com.

Visit: entergyarkansas.com/irrigation

Entergy Arkansas, Inc. provides electricity to more than 692,000 customers in 63 counties. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2012 at 7:11 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.