Entergy Louisiana's data center load: 7+ GW for Meta alone, 10–17 GW system-wide

The figure traded most often in Louisiana conversations about data center load — “1.6 GW” — does not appear in any Entergy filing, LPSC order, or earnings disclosure that we can locate. The verifiable load picture is materially larger, both for Meta's Richland Parish campus and for Entergy Corporation system-wide. This brief reconstructs the number from the bottom up using LPSC docket filings, Entergy press releases, and the company's March 2026 Fair Share Plus pledge.

The bottom-up headline

Combining the two LPSC-filed Meta agreements and the Hut 8 service agreement, the confirmed and filed Louisiana data center generation obligations exceed 7,830 MW (~7.8 GW) of dedicated new build, before any later-stage projects (SWEPCO/Amazon, Cleco/Applied Digital) are layered on. Bloomberg reported on April 29, 2026 that the ten total gas plants planned across Meta Phase 1 and Phase 2 “will aim to provide more than 7 gigawatts of power.” That 7+ GW number, for Meta's Hyperion campus alone, is the cleanest publicly cited figure backed by primary filings.

At the corporate level — across Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi — Entergy CEO Drew Marsh disclosed in February 2026 that data centers account for 7–12 GWof Entergy's total large-load pipeline, with other large industrials adding another 3–5 GW, for a system-wide pipeline of 10–17 GW. Louisiana is the dominant concentration of that pipeline, as confirmed in Utility Dive's coverage of the Q4 2025 earnings call.

LPSC dockets that ground the number

Docket U-37425 — Meta Phase 1 (Laidley LLC)

Filed November 4, 2024; settlement approved by the LPSC on August 20, 2025 in a 4–1 vote. Approves three new combined-cycle gas plants totaling 2,260 MW (two in Richland Parish, one at the Waterford site in St. Charles Parish), approximately 100 miles of 500kV transmission, and 1,500 MW of solar procurement under expedited certification. The customer is Laidley LLC, a Meta Platforms subsidiary. The full docket file is at LPSC Docket U-37425. Settlement details, including the expanded RFP for hybrid solar and the Grid Enhancing Technologies analysis, are summarized in the Southern Renewable Energy Association statement.

Docket U-37882 — Meta Phase 2 (Evest LLC, “Project Evest”)

Filed March 27, 2026 for an additional seven gas combined-cycle plants totaling more than 5,200 MW, along with roughly 240 miles of new 500kV transmission, battery storage at three locations, nuclear uprates, and up to 2,500 MW of Meta-funded renewables. The LPSC voted 4–1 in April 2026 to fast-trackthe filing under the newly adopted “Lightning Amendment” framework, with a full commission vote expected in December 2026. The application is available at the LPSC portal (redacted public version), with cost-benefit testimony filed in support. Key MW load figures are redacted in the public copy; the 5,200 MW and 7-plant breakdown comes from the March 27, 2026 Entergy press release and was confirmed in Entergy's Q1 2026 earnings on April 29.

Docket U-37853 — Waterford 6 and Westlake Power Stations

Filed February 11, 2026. Approximately 1,500 MWof additional combined-cycle capacity across two sites — the Waterford site in St. Charles Parish (Killona) and the Roy S. Nelson site in Westlake. Waterford 6's in-service date is projected for July 2030 pending December 2026 certification. The cover letter and application are at the LPSC portal.

Docket X-37921 — Large Load Non-Binding Guidelines

Published May 8, 2026, this is the repository docket for the LPSC Large Load Customer Non-Binding Guidelines adopted in February 2026. The guidelines PDF defines the framework that “Lightning Amendment” filings like U-37882 are evaluated against; the docket is informational and does not accept interventions.

Hut 8 River Bend — the third committed agreement

On December 17, 2025, Entergy and Hut 8 announced a $10 billion AI data center campus in West Feliciana Parish branded as River Bend. Entergy Louisiana committed to 330 MW of initial utility capacity (245 MW critical IT load), scalable to 1,000 MW, with operations expected to begin Q2 2027. Fluidstack is the anchor tenant with Google providing the financial backstop. The campus has 627 acres currently under option out of a 2,361-acre total assemblage. The official utility announcement is here; Hut 8's own project page is at hut8.com/data-centers/river-bend. No LPSC docket number for the Hut 8 service agreement was located in primary sources at the time of this brief.

Fair Share Plus — the policy frame

On March 5, 2026, Entergy formally announced its Fair Share Plus framework alongside a claim of $5 billion in 20-year customer savings across Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi ($800 million attributed to Louisiana at announcement). The full pledge is at entergy.com and the corporate hub at entergy.com/datacenters (updated April 24, 2026) revises the Louisiana figure to $2.8 billion following the Meta Phase 2 agreement. The release was timed one day after the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge and Entergy explicitly tied the two together in its own statement.

The five guiding principles, verbatim from Entergy:

1. 1. Sufficiently long contract term. Revenues must recover the cost of new infrastructure; assets remaining at contract end must either be cost-effective for all customers or paid for by the data center.
2. 2. Strong collateral requirements. Payment obligations backed by liquid collateral (cash deposits, letters of credit) plus parent guarantees from the ultimate tech company.
3. 3. Guarantee adequate revenues.Rates must cover incremental cost to serve during the contract term plus the data center's share of the existing grid.
4. 4. Clean power support. Contracts must lock in data center commitments to clean or nuclear procurement.
5. 5. Strong commission oversight. State PSC oversight of cost prudence is essential to protect all customers.

The ratepayer counter-modeling

Entergy's $2.8 billion Louisiana savings figure is a revenue-offset claim — incremental data center revenue applied against the customer cost base. Independent modeling from the Union of Concerned Scientists, summarized by The Lens NOLA measures a different quantity: wholesale electricity systemcosts over 15 years. Under their High Growth scenario, Louisiana's wholesale system costs could be $14 billion to $26 billion higherthan a no-data-center baseline, with public-health damages of $1.5–3 billion and global climate damages of $35–87 billion. UCS notes that Meta's full Hyperion campus could consume roughly six times the annual electricity of the city of New Orleans.

The Alliance for Affordable Energy opposed the Docket U-37425 settlement, itemizing fuel and operating costs for the three gas plants, a $550 million 500kV transmission line, and post-contract asset costs as ratepayer-borne. The Louisiana Energy Users Group (LEUG), a coalition that includes Exxon and Dow Chemical, went on record against the proposal — a notable cross- constituency objection given LEUG normally represents incumbent industrial load. Investigative coverage by The Lens NOLA characterizes the LPSC's Lightning Amendment as a procedural change that “could force ratepayers in the state to pay more than half of the costs of powering a given AI data center.”

Beyond Entergy: SWEPCO, Cleco, and the rest

Two more confirmed Louisiana data center commitments sit outside Entergy's territory. SWEPCO (an AEP subsidiary) announced on February 23, 2026 a $12 billion Amazon / STACK Infrastructure data center across Caddo and Bossier Parishes, structured so Amazon pays 100% of its electricity costs including all infrastructure upgrades. Cleco markets over 1,300 acres for data center development through its economic development arm at clecodev.com, and the Rapides Parish Journal reports that Applied Digital's Cleco power arrangement is “substantially worked out” though no formal LPSC filing has surfaced.

What is still unknown

Entergy does not publish a standalone “Entergy Louisiana data center load” figure in its Integrated Resource Plan; the 2027 IRP cycle has been initiated and may surface a Louisiana-only breakdown for the first time. Actual IT load (as distinct from generation capacity) for the Meta and Hut 8 customers is redacted in the LPSC filings; bill impacts to individual residential customers have not been published in a publicly released, LPSC-accepted model using unsealed agreement terms. Finally, the Lightning Amendment's adopting docket — as distinct from the X-37921 informational repository — has not been clearly identified in the public-record materials we have surveyed so far.

What this means for buyers and underwriters

For operators sizing capex against Louisiana's grid posture, the useful framing is the bottom-up build: 7+ GW of new gas generation under construction or approval review for Meta alone, plus 1 GW pathway at Hut 8, plus Waterford 6 (1,500 MW) being re-platformed for large-load growth. The corporate 10–17 GW pipeline is the right number to use when comparing Entergy's exposure to Vistra, NextEra, or AEP. For ratepayer- impact work, the right comparison is wholesale system costs over 15 years (UCS) against revenue-offset savings claims (Entergy) — they measure different things, and one set of numbers is not the answer to the other.

Related primary-source coverage on LouisianAI:

• Operator hub: Meta Platforms — Louisiana AI footprint
• Parish hub: Richland Parish — Hyperion campus context
• Pillar: Louisiana's AI power grid problem
• Parish hub: West Feliciana Parish — Hut 8 River Bend context