After luring Meta’s largest data center to Richland Parish, the CEO of Entergy Louisiana said Monday the state is poised to take advantage of economic opportunities driven by the push for artificial intelligence and renewable energy.
“We can’t really name who is out there, but the Meta announcement created a lot of interest,” Phillip May told the Press Club of Baton Rouge. May said Meta’s decision to build a $10 billion data center in north Louisiana, “changed the narrative” of the state.
“Changing that narrative and being able to produce such an outstanding economic win means that we are able to attract more of those opportunities to improve the outcomes of our families in our community,” he said.
Entergy plans on building three new power plants to meet the needs of the Richland Parish facility.
The plants will be powered by natural gas but will have the ability to generate power from hydrogen and capture carbon dioxide.
Beyond that, May said Entergy is considering adding two additional power plants to meet the needs caused by retiring facilities and general economic growth. Entergy is accepting requests for proposals from operators who would build the plants and sell electricity to the company or sell the generating facilities outright.
The company also is accepting requests for a 3,000-megawatt solar facility, driven by the demands of industrial customers who want clean, reliable power, May said.
Those investments will improve service for existing Entergy customers, with Meta absorbing much of the tab, because of the amount of power it will use, he said.
Entergy has launched a five-year plan to improve the resilience and reliability of the power grid. The work will involve 21,000 projects around the state, including at least 100 projects to harden the system.
Louisiana is one of the most challenging places to keep electrical power running in the entire U.S., due to the frequency of lightning strikes in population centers like New Orleans and Baton Rouge, tropical storms hitting the state regularly, the fast rate of tree growth and the fact that utility poles sink into the ground.
“In order for us to continue to attract industry to Louisiana, we need a more resilient grid,” May said. “The grid we have today was designed at a time when we dealt with a very different environment.”
Reprinted with permission from The Baton Rouge Advocate.
