More than 18 months after Louisiana officials began wooing executives from Meta to the state, eventually helping land the Facebook parent company’s massive artificial intelligence data center near Monroe, Entergy Louisiana CEO Phillip May said he sees more economic development potential in the state than at any time in his 40-year career.
“We have the greatest economic pipeline since the post-World War II years,” May said in an interview Tuesday. “We have growth from the traditional petrochemical sector and also a new set of opportunities.”
Sounds amazing. I can't wait to live in the future.
Should probably remember that he said this, though. I have a feeling it might come up at some point.
Environmental groups and advocates for renewable energy have criticized the plan and questioned whether consumers will get hit with higher utility bills if Meta bails on the plant after 15 years. May said he isn’t worried that will happen, and argued that Meta investments in transmission infrastructure, resilience upgrades and the plants themselves represent a benefit to customers.
“Louisiana customers will continue to get low-cost power from the plants,” even if Meta were to pull out after 15 years, May said, adding that by then, much of the grid’s infrastructure will need upgrades and that “customers will be paying for that as they would.”
In middle Atlantic and Northern states where large data centers have been operating for years, residential customers have seen monthly utility bills go up by 20% to 30% in some cases. May said he believes that is unlikely to happen in Louisiana, where utilities are regulated.
“Those states are deregulated,” he said. “If you’re in a competitive market like that and prices are at an all-time high, it gets passed along to everyone.”
We'll see!
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