A Louisiana data-center announcement is not a closed deal. The Louisiana Public Service Commission decides whether Entergy, Cleco, or SWEPCO may build and recover the plants and lines that make the campus real. Docket U-37882 — Entergy's Meta / Evest expansion case — is the live example: an open certification, a 19th Judicial District Court appeal, and Commission consideration set for December 16, 2026.
In Louisiana, a hyperscale campus can buy land, hire contractors, and announce billions of dollars before it has the one thing it cannot build around: certified power. The Louisiana Public Service Commission does not approve the data center as a land-use project. It decides whether the utility may build and recover the generation, transmission, storage, and customer-specific service needed to energize it. Until that certification exists, the campus is a construction site with a hope of voltage.
That is why the LPSC docket trail is the closing path for a Louisiana data-center deal. Parish votes and LED announcements can start the story. LDEQ permits can clear air and water. None of those records answer the ratepayer question the Commission is chartered to decide: who pays for the plants, the 500 kV lines, and the leftover assets if the customer later leaves.
The live test case is LPSC Docket U-37882, Entergy Louisiana's application to certify generation and transmission resources for Evest LLC, a Meta subsidiary seeking a large hyperscale load in Richland Parish next to the campus already under construction as Meta Hyperion. The official docket is open. The Commission's own May 14, 2026 order sets consideration for the December 16, 2026 Business and Executive Session. A 19th Judicial District Court appeal now sits across that calendar.
Entergy Louisiana filed the U-37882 application on March 25, 2026, according to the Commission's later order. The public docket page records the matter as opened March 26, 2026, published March 27, 2026, and still Open. The caption is Entergy Louisiana, LLC, ex parte: an application for certification of generation and transmission resources and for other relief.
The order describes the customer as Evest LLC, seeking to locate a large hyperscale data center in Richland Parish adjacent to the facility being developed by Laidley LLC — the Meta subsidiary behind the first Hyperion package. Meta is listed among the companies involved on the docket page, alongside Entergy, LPSC Staff, the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club, Walmart, and several electric cooperatives.
What Entergy is asking the Commission to certify is not a single substation. Utility Dive reported that after the March Meta agreement, Entergy asked the LPSC to approve seven new combined-cycle units totaling more than 5.2 GW, plus transmission and battery storage. An October 19, 2026 American Press report citing the court petition puts the proposed generating units at 5,278 megawatts. Meta's July 13, 2026 announcement says its Entergy agreement will fund seven new natural-gas generating plants, three grid-scale batteries, nuclear uprates, and other purchased power.
Those are generation and grid figures. They are not the same as Hyperion's published 5 GW compute-capacity row on the tracker, and they are not a Commission approval. U-37882 remains an open certification proceeding.
The first Meta power package already has a Commission ending. Docket U-37425 covers Entergy Louisiana generation and transmission resources for service to a single North Louisiana customer project — Laidley LLC / Meta Platforms at Hyperion. The settlement was approved at the August 20, 2025 Business and Executive Session; the order document is dated August 29, 2025. That docket is the approved Phase 1 control record.
Utility Dive described that first authorization as three combined-cycle gas plants with combined nameplate capacity of about 2.2 GW, plus authority for Entergy to procure up to 1.5 GW of solar. Those numbers belong to the closed Phase 1 path. They do not pre-approve the U-37882 expansion.
Readers looking for "has the Meta deal closed?" need both dockets. Land, construction, and LED announcements can proceed on Phase 1 terms. The expansion load, the additional plants, and the larger customer agreement still have to survive U-37882.
U-37882 was not filed as a leisurely rate case. The May 14, 2026 Commission order, decided at the April 15, 2026 Business and Executive Session, says Entergy filed under the Lightning Directive adopted December 17, 2025. That directive waives parts of the Market Based Mechanism Order for certain capacity additions and tells Staff to process applications so the Commission can vote within eight months.
Entergy asked for a November 18, 2026 consideration date. Staff recommended the December session so the Commission would have the full eight months. Commissioner Campbell's motion, adopted 4-1 (Lewis opposing), directed the Administrative Hearings Division to set a schedule "that provides for Commission consideration of the Application at the December 16, 2026 Business and Executive Session," compile a complete evidentiary record, and issue no ALJ recommendation. The Commission is to consider the case de novo.
The LPSC agenda page lists December 16, 2026 as a proposed Business and Executive Session in Shreveport, with the usual caveat that dates and locations may change. That is the official calendar the May 14 order pointed at. It is a scheduled consideration, not a published final vote tally.
The closing question in U-37882 is not only whether seven plants are needed. It is whether the Commission has enough evidence to decide that the plants, the contract, and the leftover-cost treatment are in the public interest. Advocacy parties asked Meta to produce the documents behind the investment, job, and electricity-demand claims Entergy is relying on.
Earthjustice, representing the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists, says Chief Administrative Law Judge Melanie Verzwyvelt partially granted that subpoena on July 10, 2026. She ordered Meta to produce records supporting expected investment and permanent job creation, plus documents substantiating electricity needs. She rejected other categories, including detailed load-fluctuation data, sustainability-agreement communications, and Meta financial-guarantee files.
The Commission then reversed her. The American Press / Center Square report says commissioners voted 3-1 on August 12, 2026 to vacate the subpoena: Coussan, Skrmetta, and Francis in the majority, Lewis opposed, Campbell absent. The written reversal is order U-37882-A, dated September 17, 2026. LouisianAI's U-37882 record also notes a later confidentiality action: on September 16 the Commission accepted an attorneys'-eyes-only agreement and vacated an August 6 ALJ ruling, with written order U-37882-B dated October 16, 2026.
That sequence matters for closing. A utility certification can be granted on a compiled record. If the record omits the customer's own substantiation, opponents will argue the Commission cannot know whether the load, the jobs, or the residual-cost story is real. Supporters will argue the electric service agreement and collateral package already protect other customers. The Commission, not the parish, has to pick.
On September 28, 2026, Earthjustice announced that the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists had appealed to the Civil District Court for the 19th Judicial District — the Baton Rouge court that reviews LPSC orders. The Earthjustice release and the matching Union of Concerned Scientists release ask the court to reverse the Commission and reinstate the July 10 partial subpoena.
The October 19 American Press report describes the petition's requested relief in more operational terms: reinstate the subpoena, halt activity associated with Entergy's application, reopen the evidentiary record, and expedite review before a commission decision scheduled for December 16. The groups argue that the Commission gave no reason for vacating the ALJ's order, which they say prevents meaningful judicial review. No court ruling has been reported.
That is the live constraint on closing. The May 14 order still points the Commission at December 16. The appeal asks a district court to interrupt or reshape the record before that date. Until the court rules, or the Commission acts, U-37882 is not a closed deal.
Meta's July announcement calls the expansion an investment of more than $50 billion and says the campus will provide more than 1,000 operational roles. It also says the energy agreement is expected to save Entergy Louisiana customers more than $2 billion over 20 years, on top of $650 million from the first agreement, and that Meta pays the full cost of the energy, water, and related infrastructure it uses. Those are Meta statements, not Commission findings.
The American Press report, citing the petition, says Meta has described more than 7,500 jobs at peak construction for the expanded development. LED's December 4, 2024 announcement for the original project said 5,000 construction workers at peak and 500 or more direct jobs. The two figures describe different project scopes and should not be added together.
On electricity demand, American Press reports that Entergy President and CEO Phillip May testified at an October 7, 2026 hearing that Meta would use 4,500 megawatts, as reported by The Times-Picayune | The Advocate. The same story says the appeal still wants the records showing how that requirement was calculated. American Press, citing a Union of Concerned Scientists analysis, also reports Entergy estimates of roughly $13.6 billion in new generation capital costs, about 75 percent paid down by the end of a 20-year contract, leaving approximately $3.4 billion. Entergy's public answer, in that reporting, is that remaining plants would still be needed as older units retire.
LouisianAI does not treat those residual-cost figures as a Commission conclusion. They are the live dispute the docket exists to decide.
U-37882 is the Meta expansion gate. It is not the whole Louisiana large-load trail. Docket X-37921 is the repository for the Commission's Non-Binding Guidelines for Potential Large Load Customers. Those guidelines are the framework Staff uses to evaluate expedited filings. They are not themselves an approval.
Docket U-37853 is Entergy's separate request to construct Waterford 6 Power Station and Westlake Power Station. It is a system-resource case, not a single-customer Meta docket, and it is the control record for how broader large-load generation may be recovered. Docket U-38035 is Cleco Power's open package for Applied Digital in Rapides Parish — proof that the same closing logic now applies on more than one utility system.
For method, start with the official LPSC portal, then use LouisianAI's plain-English docket trail and the how-to-track guide. Policy and power pages keep the statute and grid context next to the filings. Do not read an LED announcement, a parish plat, or a company press release as a substitute for a certification order.
A Louisiana data-center power deal is closed, in the regulatory sense, when the Commission issues an order certifying the resources and the customer-specific service terms — and when any timely court review of that order is resolved. Announcements, construction photos, and even an electric service agreement signed by the utility are inputs. They are not the close.
For Hyperion Phase 1, that close already exists in U-37425. For the expansion, watch four documents in this order: the official U-37882 docket; any 19th JDC ruling on the subpoena appeal; the December 16, 2026 Business and Executive Session action, if the calendar holds; and the written certification order that follows a vote. Until those records exist, the honest status is the one on the portal: Open.
No. A May 14, 2026 LPSC order directs Commission consideration of U-37882 at the December 16, 2026 Business and Executive Session. The LPSC agenda lists that date as a proposed session in Shreveport. Consideration is not a published approval, and a 19th JDC appeal of the Meta subpoena ruling remains pending.
U-37882 is Entergy Louisiana's open application to certify generation and transmission resources and other relief for Evest LLC / Meta's Richland Parish expansion next to Hyperion. The public docket opened March 26, 2026 and remains Open.
The Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists, represented by Earthjustice, appealed the LPSC's reversal of an ALJ subpoena that had required Meta to produce investment, jobs, and electricity-need records. The October 19, 2026 American Press report says the petition asks the court to reinstate the subpoena and expedite review before the December 16 consideration. No court ruling has been reported.