Inside the Entergy/Meta Power Fight: Your Guide to the Oct. 7 PSC Hearing

Here is the question at the center of this week's hearing: when one customer needs more electricity than an entire city, who should pay for the power plants that serve it, and how sure should regulators be that the customer will stick around?

That customer is Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Its Hyperion data center in Richland Parish is projected to use more power than all of New Orleans, WAFB reported. Entergy Louisiana wants permission to build the generation and transmission to serve it. Starting Oct. 7, the Louisiana Public Service Commission will hear the evidence.

What happens on Oct. 7

A three-day evidentiary hearing is expected to open Oct. 7, according to The Center Square's reporting, republished by the American Press on Sept. 30. The hearing covers whether Entergy's construction plan is necessary, how costs get split between Meta and everyone else, how the electricity demand was calculated, how the system is designed, and what protections exist for other ratepayers.

The commission itself does not vote at the hearing. WAFB reported in August that the commission was scheduled to vote on Entergy's generator plan in December, and The Center Square has reported a target date of Dec. 16.

What Entergy is asking for

Entergy calls the request Project Evest. As of Sept. 30, it includes, according to 10/12 Industry Report and The Center Square:

• Seven combined-cycle natural gas units. Four would sit near the data center in Richland Parish and three near the Big Cajun plant in Pointe Coupee Parish. A combined-cycle unit burns gas in a turbine, then captures the waste heat to make steam for a second generator.
• Three battery-storage projects.
• A new interconnection substation.
• More than 250 miles of 500-kilovolt and 230-kilovolt transmission lines.

This is a second round. Regulators approved an earlier package of three gas plants for the original Meta project in August 2025, and Entergy CEO Phillip May has said the new infrastructure is required "beyond those approved in August 2025," according to The Center Square.

The reason for the second round is scale. On July 13, Louisiana Economic Development announced that Meta had raised its Richland Parish commitment to more than $50 billion, with nearly 10 million square feet and 5 gigawatts of IT capacity. The state projects 7,500 construction jobs at peak and 1,000 operating jobs.

The argument for the plan

Entergy's case is that the deal lowers costs for other customers because Meta's long-term contract helps pay for shared infrastructure. LED's July announcement said the Entergy agreement is expected to produce more than $2 billion in customer savings. The Louisiana Illuminator reported Entergy's projection as $2.6 billion in savings over two decades, as part of roughly $15 billion in power infrastructure.

Entergy has also said the new transmission matters beyond Meta. At a public meeting about a proposed 500-kilovolt line from Richland Parish toward Avoyelles Parish, Entergy vice president Larry Hand said, "If we don't have this line, we will not be able to service generators around the state for maintenance or transmission lines," KALB reported on Oct. 3.

The argument against it, or for more conditions

The main intervenors include the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Sierra Club, along with industrial customers and consumer advocates. Their concern is risk. If Meta's demand comes in lower than forecast, or if the company leaves when its contract ends, other customers could be left paying for plants built for one user.

The Union of Concerned Scientists told the Illuminator that Entergy's analysis "leaves little to no room for deviating from expectations." Hand acknowledged the contract question directly at the Oct. 1 meeting: "It's a 20-year contract with Meta for this current project [and] what happens after 20 years is they either renew or they don't."

Landowners are a newer front. KALB reported that a coalition led by LaSalle Parish rancher Dustin McAnn opposes the West Fork Creek to Boeuf 500-kilovolt line, citing surveyors on private land and the risk of expropriation, which is the legal process for taking private property for public use with compensation.

The records fight, explained

A lot of the public debate has been about what the public can't see. Here is the timeline, as of Oct. 4:

The practical result: intervenors' lawyers and experts can examine some of Meta's numbers under strict limits, but the public cannot. That is common in utility cases involving trade secrets. What makes this case different is its size.

Meta, notably, is not listed among the hearing's witnesses, 10/12 Industry Report noted.

What the data does and doesn't tell us

A few honest caveats before you form a view:

• The savings figures are projections from Entergy, not audited results. They depend on Meta's actual demand and on gas prices over 20 years.
• The risk figures are also arguments. Intervenors have said some of the units may not be needed. Counsel for the advocates said "it may well be that only two are justified," WWNO reported. That is a position, not a finding.
• Nobody outside the confidentiality agreement has seen the load forecast that drives the whole request. Neither side's public claims can be fully checked until the commission rules and explains why.

How to follow along

Filings, testimony and orders in Docket U-37882 are posted through the LPSC's electronic docket system. Commission votes happen at monthly Business and Executive sessions. We will post updates after each hearing day.

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