On Thursday Entergy requested the Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) proceed with a vote at their August 20 meeting on whether to grant final, expedited approval of Entergy Louisiana’s proposal to provide 2.3 gigawatts (GW) for a data center being constructed in Richland Parish for Meta, the Silicon Valley corporation that owns social media entities such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
After being announced by Meta and Governor Jeff Landry in December of 2024 along with vague and unverifiable claims that the data center would create thousands of jobs, Entergy initiated the regulatory process required for approval of a proposal for three new, gas-fired power plants and significant new transmission infrastructure.
Already, this process was being expedited under the auspices of serving the “public interest” – namely, Entergy was allowed to bypass entirely the Request for Proposal competitive bidding process that is normally required for projects of this scale, which would ensure that customers are being provided the least cost form of generation for costs that they will be required to pay.
Now, after rushing through a process that has not even been completed, Entergy and Meta are pressuring the LPSC to include final decision-making on the Meta docket at the August 20th Business & Executive (B&E) meeting – previously, final decision-making was to take place in October of this year, moving potential approval of the project up by two months.
“The push to force through approval of the Meta proposal is illustrative of our greatest concern – that corporate utilities believe the Louisiana Public Service Commission answers first and foremost to them, not Louisiana ratepayers,” said Logan Atkinson Burke, Executive Director of The Alliance. “The Commissioners have a choice – and a chance to prove them wrong,” she added.
“At no point in this process have ratepayers been given a fair shake, or even the opportunity to fully understand what their regulators are agreeing to on their behalf,” Burke said. “And what regulators will be deciding will have consequences for decades to come – likely resulting in ever greater increases on monthly electric bills for Entergy customers, not only in North Louisiana, but across the state.”
The proposed 2.3 GWs represents approximately twice the amount of electricity demanded by New Orleans each summer, with costs for the gas-fired power plants expected to be $3.2 billion alone. Transmission costs will add approximately $2 billion more in costs to the project overall.
While Entergy claims publicly that Meta will cover the costs of the power plants over the course of their agreement, the contract between Entergy and Meta is for only 15 years – the average lifespan of a gas-fired power plant is between 30 to 45 years. Because Meta is not a formal party to the regulatory process, all details of their agreement have been kept confidential and away from public scrutiny – including how much other customers will be on the hook for paying to power Meta alone.
“There is so much that we do not know about what this project will mean for Louisiana’s ratepayers – from small businesses to working families, industrial customers to churches and schools,” said Alaina DiLaura, LPSC Policy Coordinator for The Alliance. “By rushing this process, our questions are even less likely to be answered, and ratepayers may not know what’s coming until it’s too late, and they see their already expensive monthly electric bills skyrocket.”
“That’s exactly why we need our regulators to slow things down – there is no reason to rush approval of this docket other than to avoid having to answer hard questions,” DiLaura added.
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Contact: Emma Meyerkopf, Communication Manager, 504-229-4643, emma@all4energy.org
