Entergy's Google expansion includes a solar deal Arkansas regulators denied

Entergy Arkansas says Google will pay for about $600 million of new grid investment and a 440 MW solar power purchase agreement to serve a second phase of its West Memphis data center campus, and that customers will see at least $500 million in new savings over 20 years starting in 2028. The October 19, 2026 announcement lists a 1,000 MWh battery at Driver Solar near Osceola and a 400 MWh battery at Jones Mill near Hot Springs, both expected online in 2028, plus an expanded Galet substation and two new 230 kV lines to the campus. The solar contract on that list is one the Arkansas Public Service Commission turned down on September 16.

Customers, in Entergy's telling, get the savings without the bill: Google pays under a new contract, and the new resources will not be charged through the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act rider. Entergy stacks the $500 million on the $1.6 billion it had identified from the campus's first phase, for $2.1 billion in what it calls net benefits that help cover the fixed costs all customers share. The expansion still goes to the commission for approval; pending that, Entergy expects it in service in 2028. The release sizes both batteries in megawatt-hours only, leaving their power rating, and so their duration, to the filing (kW vs kWh).

Entergy opened docket 26-073-U on October 9 with a motion for a protective order and, in a revised motion on October 15, said it expects to file within 30 days of the motion for certificates to build battery storage facilities in Mississippi County and Hot Spring County. Entergy says the new resources, together with the Arkansas Cypress Solar and Battery facility under construction in Jefferson County, will add over 1,000 MW of solar and 2,800 MWh of battery storage.

Who pays for a data center's power is being argued in several states. Pennsylvania's governor has moved to join a consumer advocate's case seeking a separate data center rate class at PPL, and We Energies says an Oracle subscription to Point Beach output is expected to save its customers about $300 million in fuel costs.

A contract the commission turned down

Big Island is a 20-year agreement with Big Island Solar 1 LLC, an indirect subsidiary of Pattern Energy Group, for a 440 MWac plant on about 3,200 acres in Mississippi County. Entergy signed it on December 18, 2025 and filed for approval on January 29, 2026 in docket 26-003-U, projecting $29 million to $214 million in net benefits for customers depending on the plant's capacity accreditation. Part of that case rested on renewable energy credits that Google, under a non-binding memorandum of understanding, intended to help pay for, toward its goal of matching its data centers' consumption with carbon-free energy by 2030.

The commission said no in Order No. 6. It did not find the cost reasonable and prudent, savings against other supply options, the contract required by public convenience and necessity or needed to supplement or replace existing generation, or approval in the public interest. Among its reasons: the credit contract with Google was still being negotiated, the plant was likely to be accredited at 13 percent or lower, and Entergy's benefits counted a carbon dioxide tax the commission said does not appear to be on the horizon. It encouraged alternatives such as sleeve PPAs "if EAL is committed to acquiring RECs for Google," and said that if Entergy and Google reached an agreement the commission approved, "EAL may file a new application for the Big Island PPA which may have a different economic analysis depending on the terms of such agreement."

The release puts it more gently: the Big Island contract "was added based on Arkansas Public Service Commission guidance from the initial filing of the resource." The order in that filing was a denial.

A rehearing against the clock

Entergy went for rehearing instead. On October 7 it signed a clean energy attributes agreement with a 20-year initial term, according to supplemental testimony from Kristin Dalrymple, Entergy Arkansas's vice president of business operations and strategy. Google pays the PPA price plus an adder and Entergy's administrative costs; in return it receives the energy and capacity revenues from the MISO markets attributable to Big Island as bill offsets, plus the plant's renewable energy credits. Entergy's petition describes Google as assuming the risk that those market revenues will not exceed the PPA's cost over the contract term. "Put simply, Google is providing full cost support for the Big Island PPA, which helps to ensure that other EAL customers will see the energy and capacity of this resource at no cost," she testified. The counterparty named in Entergy's October 8 petition is Altitude Capital, LLC, which the petition calls Google for its purposes. It asks for a reversal no later than October 22 "in order to maintain the secondary, and last, Commercial Operation Date contemplated by the PPA and the 2028 in-service date on which EAL's resource planning relies."

Commission staff and the attorney general, the other two parties in the case, both want Entergy to start over. Staff answered on October 15 that Order No. 6 was clear: once the Google agreement was executed, Entergy could submit a new application with a new economic analysis, and it has not complied; staff recommends denying rehearing. The attorney general's office filed on October 19, the day of the announcement, asking the commission to strike the Google agreement and Dalrymple's testimony as additional evidence that its rehearing rule bars without prior leave, and to deny the petition. The credit agreement, it argues, addresses only one of several benefits the commission found unsubstantiated: "At a minimum, there should be a new filing with more details provided by EAL and a new timeline for Staff and intervening parties to address."

Entergy says there is no time for that. Its October 16 reply says refiling would not leave room for a new procedural schedule and that it needs approval by October 22 "so the developer can begin to spend substantial funds to pursue construction." The release describes Big Island as a facility "being constructed in Mississippi County."

Outlook

The October 22 date is Entergy's, not the commission's. If the commission reverses Order No. 6 by then, Big Island keeps the 2028 in-service date Entergy's resource planning relies on, per the petition. If it sides with staff and the attorney general, a new application means a new schedule. Entergy's reply argues that requiring one "almost certainly would cause the loss of Big Island," and that there is no basis to believe the seller will wait another six months. Either way, the at-least-$500 million estimate covers a package that includes a contract the commission has denied, and the battery application Entergy expects within 30 days of its revised October 15 motion may give the first detailed public look at the storage plans.