Louisiana utility players described their pull-out-all-the-stops, gas-propelled campaign to attract data centers as another hyperscaler announced plans for a new artificial intelligence-training facility in the state.
Amazon and Google’s fresh announcements for major data centers in Louisiana and Minnesota, respectively, grabbed attention at the Gulf Coast Power Association’s annual MISO–SPP Regional Conference.
“We’re in a power first world,” Entergy Louisiana CEO Phillip May said in a Feb. 24 keynote speech.
May said the data center revolution needs more than traditional regulatory frameworks and historical infrastructure buildout can offer.
“Regions that can deliver … are becoming new hotspots for growth,” he said. “Today, we’re being asked to deliver agility and adaptability.”
Northern Louisiana is set to host another multibillion-dollar data campus, this time a $12 billion Amazon facility near Shreveport.
American Electric Power’s Southwestern Electric Power Co. said it would supply power in a Feb. 23 announcement. Amazon said it has worked with SWEPCO to ensure it would pay all costs associated with the new data center.
Amazon’s venture is in addition to Meta building its largest, $10 billion-plus AI data center to date in Richland Parish.
One audience member in an earlier panel had pointed out that SWEPCO is valued at $9 billion, just 75% of the $12 billion deal. They asked at what point hyperscalers would outright buy a utility. Panelists demurred on the question.
May said investment is “mobile” and can switch prospective points on the grid easily. He said utilities must be able to compete for the new load. He lauded the Louisiana Public Service Commission’s new expedited review process, which can cut certain projects’ regulatory approval to an eight-month turnaround.
May said natural gas right now is the technology that can meet the scale of demand.
“It’s not an ideological argument. It’s an engineering reality,” May said. He added that nuclear must also play a role in the long term.
May framed data centers’ 24/7 load as a good thing, taking the guesswork out of planning generation and transmission investments.
‘Tired of Being on the Bottom of the List’
May asserted that Entergy Louisiana’s supplier philosophy is paying dividends and that the utility has been integral in Louisiana being able to attract $90 billion in capital investment since 2024.
“This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. We get to design the next 100 years of Louisiana,” he said.
Audience members asked if the massive investments are upping Entergy’s financial risk and if the utility is pursuing non-traditional means to secure capital.
“There’s a massive capital challenge to meet that,” May acknowledged. He said Entergy does not place generation projects for hyperscalers in its capital plan until data center developers strike electric service agreements and commit to funding all infrastructure costs associated with their facilities. He also said Entergy expects help with cash flow from the start to begin planning and construction.
May said Entergy played an instrumental role in creating the state’s 2024 20-year sales tax exemption on equipment and software for qualifying data centers. Entergy lobbied Gov. Jeff Landry (R) for the law, which was tailored to attract Meta.
“This state is hungry. We’re tired of being on the bottom of the list,” May said.
Data center centers are a good fit for lower-income regions of the state that until now have been “overlooked by economic development,” he argued. He assured residential customers in Richland Parish that they would pay less for power because of Meta’s planned, $10 billion data center.
‘Guarantee is a Guarantee’
In a later panel with a trio of state regulators, who are elected officials, Louisiana PSC Commissioner Jean-Paul Coussan said his inbox is flooded with constituents angrily asking why they are helping to defray data center costs. But he said that’s not the case in the state.
“The national conversation is controlling the narrative,” Coussan said. He said the commission required Meta to “immediately pay on bills” that its data center campus is triggering.
Coussan said constituents sometimes don’t believe that a “guarantee is a guarantee.”
Some environmental and consumer advocates worry that Meta has since fundamentally changed the financing structure of the project and could wriggle out of its promised consumer protections. (See Earthjustice Says Change to Louisiana Meta Data Center Funding Fishy, Asks PSC to Investigate.)
In January, Earthjustice, on behalf of the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists, filed a motion to request the PSC probe the new arrangement and its potential effect on ratepayer protections. The PSC on Feb. 25 declined to investigate the new financial setup.
Coussan said he has not reviewed the Google data center deal yet, and he is interested in seeing which consumer protections Google and SWEPCO intend to establish.
Google Stakes Claim in Southeastern Minn.
During the same panel, Missouri Public Service Commissioner John Mitchell said the “lightning pace” of demand and infrastructure additions causes him anxiety.
Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Joe Sullivan said that among other things, the impact of higher rates on those who can least afford them weighs on him.
Xcel Energy followed Louisiana’s Amazon announcement a day later on Feb. 24 with notice that it plans to power a new Google data center in southeastern Minnesota. Google similarly said it would pay all the costs accompanying the new campus and fund 1,400 MW of wind, 200 MW of solar and 300 MW of Form Energy’s long-duration, iron-air battery storage.
“We’re going to see. The rubber is going to hit the road very soon here,” Sullivan said of Xcel’s impending docket before the commission. He said Xcel will propose a large load rate in the coming months.
“We’re going to take one step in front of the next and work through it,” Sullivan promised.
Regulatory Assistance Project principal Sarah Freeman, herself a former Indiana commissioner, asked how regulators deal with the “trilemma” of achieving affordability and consumer protections, reliability and meeting demand.
Mitchell said although it is almost impossible to achieve all three, state commissioners must try.
Freeman said commissions can help create a “pathway” for data centers to be better neighbors to the communities they’re situated in.
In a conference where nearly every speaker stressed speed, Sullivan insisted his commission has time to make decisions. He said Minnesota’s integrated resource planning process affords it time to weigh projects.
“If you’re landing the 747, you can’t land it on a runway built for a Cessna. Fortunately, we have a runway for a 747,” Sullivan said of the commission, adding he has “tremendous faith in our process.”
