# Ironwood Order No. 9 — CECPN Grant for LC5 (Doc. 152, 2025-04-18) The Commission's 55-page substantive order in [[psc/docket-24-072-u-order-9-2026-05-24/_overview|Docket 24-072-U]] granting [[Entergy Arkansas]] a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need (CECPN) for [[Ironwood|Lake Catherine Unit 5]] (446 MW hydrogen-capable, simple-cycle natural gas combustion turbine in Hot Spring County, Arkansas). Issued by ALJ [[Bridgette M. Frazier]] under delegated authority, April 18, 2025 — about one month after Act 373 of 2025 (the [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider|Generating Arkansas Jobs Act]]) was signed (2025-03-20). **Retrieved 2026-05-24 to close the load-bearing documentary gap on [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement]]**: Palmer's rebuttal in the GAJA Rider docket cites this order extensively at pp. 20, 25-26, 44, 53 ([[Palmer Rebuttal on Ironwood]]) for "findings that LC5 satisfies the Strategic Investment criteria." This source page reproduces what the order actually says about each of the (10)(A) purposes — and what it conspicuously does not say. ## What's inside One file: `24-072-U_152_1.pdf` (719,429 bytes; sha256 `e4eced36ac17921733558a23017b1c143c9cf3ee736d5147b4e901f1f6290468`; 55 pages). Order No. 9 by ALJ Bridgette M. Frazier under delegated authority, 2025-04-18. ## Key takeaways ### What Order No. 9 grants Conclusion of Law #19 (p. 54): "**The Project as modified herein is needed and will serve the public interest, convenience and necessity.**" Ordering paragraph 1 (p. 54): "**EAL is granted a CECPN for the construction and operation of Lake Catherine Unit 5, a 446 MW hydrogen-capable, simple-cycle natural gas combustion turbine in Hot Spring County, Arkansas.**" Conditions include: filing for DOE funding pursuit (¶3); RPP Rules 6.05(a)/(b) completion/delay reports (¶4); proposal for an Independent Monitor (¶5); sound mitigation strategies confirmation (¶6); "Nothing in this Order shall be construed as a finding of value for rate-making purposes" (¶7); benchmark project cost finding of $1,216/kW reasonable in the public interest (¶8). The benchmark finding is a partial prudence floor — it does not authorize recovery; that comes through the rate case and the [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider|GAJA Rider]]. ### Substantive need findings — bear directly on the (10)(A) purposes question The Commission's findings on need (Order No. 9 pp. 19-26) are explicit and substantive. **Pages 25-26**: "However, this is not a general needs resource acquisition docket. In this Docket, EAL seeks to replace a very specific type of resource – a peaker plant. LC4 will be deactivated in 2027, leaving ratepayers in the EAL footprint without **its only reliable peaking resource**. While the witnesses for the AG and Staff make a persuasive case that EAL's position relies on assumptions embedded within its IRP analysis that are not fully robust, **it is undoubtedly certain from the evidence presented in this Docket that EAL will need to replace LC4's capacity with a dispatchable-type resource.**" And p. 26: "**Putting it plainly, even without the IRP evidence, the undersigned finds that EAL will have an immediate need for a peaking resource as soon as LC4 is retired or no longer in service.**" These findings track directly to two of the four enumerated public-interest purposes in § 23-4-1303(10)(A): - **(10)(A)(ii) — reliability**: "**Maintain and improve the provision of reliable electric utility service**" — Order No. 9 explicitly characterizes LC4 as "its only reliable peaking resource" and finds LC5 is needed to maintain that reliability after LC4's federal-consent-decree-mandated 2027 deactivation. - **(10)(A)(iv) — dispatchable generation adequacy**: "**Ensure that electric utilities maintain adequate dispatchable generation resources**" — Order No. 9 explicitly finds "EAL will need to replace LC4's capacity with a dispatchable-type resource" and that the modeling identified a combustion turbine as "the optimal technology for EAL's next dispatchable generation" (p. 27). ### What Order No. 9 conspicuously does NOT do **The order never uses the term "Strategic Investment."** The 55-page order contains zero occurrences of "Strategic Investment" or "strategic investment." There is also no citation to **§ 23-4-1303** or **§ 23-4-1304** — the operative Strategic Investment statutes — anywhere in the order. The order's analytical framework throughout is the **Utility Facility Environmental and Economic Protection Act (UFEEPA) § 23-18-501 et seq.**, particularly the seven UFEEPA siting factors codified in § 23-18-519(b). Citations to Act 373 of 2025 appear only **once** in passing — at p. 7, noting that Act 373 repealed the now-superseded deficiency-letter requirement in former § 23-18-514(b)(1). That's the order's sole engagement with Act 373. This is dispositive for the [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002]] dialectic: Order No. 9 is **not** a Strategic Investment designation order. It is a UFEEPA CECPN grant order. Whether its substantive findings on reliability and dispatchable generation can be **retroactively credited as satisfying the § 23-4-1303(10)(A) purposes prong** — even though the order does not invoke that framework — is the unresolved statutory-construction question the Commission has not yet answered. ### The Commission's framework explicitly remained pre-Act-373 UFEEPA Pages 6-8 establish the procedural framework: "Staff witness Susan Lockwood... testified that Staff did not issue a deficiency letter pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. § 23-18-514 (b)(1) (now repealed by Act 373 of 2025)." This is the order's only reference to Act 373, and it's specifically about a procedural provision that Act 373 repealed — not about the Strategic Investment framework Act 373 created. The Order's analytical scaffolding remains UFEEPA: § 23-18-519(b)'s seven siting factors govern every substantive finding (pp. 18-50). The ordering paragraphs do not invoke Act 373 or § 23-4-1303. ### Why this matters for T002 [[D002 Synthesis]] (2026-05-24) bracketed T002 on two evidentiary gaps: the actual § 23-4-1304(w) text (since closed via the [Act 373 of 2025 enrolled bill archive](../../../../web%20archive/2026-05-24/arkleg.state.ar.us/act-373-of-2025.md)) and the Commission's substantive ruling. Order No. 9's retrieval **closes the second documentary gap** (the order is now in the corpus) but **does not lift the bracket** — instead, it sharpens the dispositive question. The new dialectical posture (Statements A and B refined): - **Statement A (Palmer/EAL, refined):** Order No. 9's findings on reliability and dispatchable generation substantively satisfy the (10)(A) purposes prong, even though the order does not invoke § 23-4-1303 expressly. The Commission's substantive findings on (10)(A)(ii) and (10)(A)(iv) purposes — combined with CECPN approval under § 23-3-201 et seq. / UFEEPA (one of the four (10)(A) approval pathways) and § 23-4-1304(w)'s three-condition recovery-eligibility test (all conditions met: pre-Act application, post-Jan-1-2025 approval order, costs not pre-included) — make LC5 a Strategic Investment eligible for GAJA Rider recovery without an additional designation label. - **Statement B (Herring/Staff, refined):** Order No. 9 conspicuously does NOT invoke the Strategic Investment framework. The order's findings on reliability and dispatchable generation are UFEEPA findings under § 23-18-519(b), not § 23-4-1303(10) findings. The Commission cannot retroactively re-characterize UFEEPA findings as Strategic Investment findings — a designation finding must be made under the Act 373 framework on the Act 373 record. The Commission's subsequent "assuming Commission approval" framing in [[Order No. 6 Legislative Council Report|Order No. 6 of 26-008-TF]] shows the Commission itself does not treat Order No. 9 as the Strategic Investment designation; the question remains procedurally and substantively unresolved. **Both statements survive the Order No. 9 retrieval.** The remaining bracket is now clean and singular: the Commission's substantive ruling on whether UFEEPA findings can substitute for (10)(A) findings is the dispositive evidence still pending. T002 status should be revised to `bracketed-because-Commission-ruling-pending-on-UFEEPA-vs-(10)(A)-equivalence` (or the cleaner `bracketed-because-Commission-ruling-pending` once all corpus-side documentary gaps are closed, as they now are). ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Bridgette M. Frazier]] — ALJ; signed Order No. 9 under delegated authority - [[Entergy Arkansas]] — applicant; granted the CECPN - [[Arkansas Public Service Commission]] — decisional authority - [[APSC General Staff]] — appeared via witnesses Martin, Bower, Lockwood - [[Office of the Arkansas Attorney General]] — appeared via witness Norwood - Witnesses (not yet anchored as person pages): - Kandice Fielder ([[Kandice Fielder]] — exists as person page) — EAL Resource Planning; testified on need - Carlos Ruiz — EAL VP, Power Development New Generation; testified on dispatchable-resource technology selection - William J. Cunningham — EAL Director, Resource Planning; testified on economic and environmental impacts - Brad T. Cullipher — EAL Manager, Transmission Planning; testified on site reliability benefits - Amy L. Morris — EAL Director, Finance; testified on financing - Bradley J. Phillips — Alliance Technical Group (EAL consultant); testified on environmental impact - Thomas Martin — APSC General Staff Engineer; testified on application completeness - [[Jeffrey D. Bower]] — APSC General Staff (Daymark Energy Advisors) - Susan Lockwood — APSC General Staff; testified on Staff's deficiency-letter approach - [[Scott Norwood]] — AG witness (Norwood Energy Consulting); testified that EAL's need analysis was insufficient - [[Billie S. LaConte]] — AEEC witness; argued application incomplete and motion to dismiss ## Concepts invoked - [[Ironwood]] / LC5 - [[Strategic Investment]] — **conspicuously absent** from the order; this absence is the substantive finding for T002 - [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]] — referenced only once, incidentally - CECPN (Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need) under UFEEPA - Federal consent decree on LC4 deactivation ## Events documented - 2025-04-18 — ALJ Frazier issues Order No. 9 granting Ironwood CECPN. Not yet a discrete event page in the corpus; would be a natural follow-on event page. ## Cross-references - [[psc/docket-24-072-u-order-9-2026-05-24/_overview|Docket 24-072-U Ironwood production (2026-05-22 curated subset)]] — the parent production overview; should be updated to acknowledge Order No. 9 retrieval. - [[Palmer Rebuttal on Ironwood]] — cites Order No. 9 at pp. 20, 25-26, 44, 53 for Strategic Investment findings; the actual content at those pages is reproduced and analyzed above. - [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement]] — Order No. 9's retrieval is the load-bearing event in T002's documentary history; the dialectic was bracketed pending exactly this document. - [[D002 Synthesis]] — the dialectic verdict bracketed on Order No. 9 retrieval; the substantive impact is documented in the [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002]] `## Resolution status` section. - [[Strategic Investment]] — concept page should be updated to reflect that Order No. 9 makes substantive findings on (10)(A)(ii) and (10)(A)(iv) purposes without invoking the (10)(A) framework expressly. - [[Who Pays for Entergy's New Generation]] Section III.1 — should be updated to cite Order No. 9 directly rather than relying on Palmer's paraphrase. ## Open questions / follow-ups - A potential **D004 dialectic** on the now-much-sharper sub-question: do Order No. 9's UFEEPA findings on reliability and dispatchable generation substantively satisfy § 23-4-1303(10)(A)(ii) and (iv) such that LC5 is a Strategic Investment, or must a discrete designation finding be made under the Act 373 framework? - The Commission's eventual substantive ruling in [[psc/docket-24-072-u-order-9-2026-05-24/_overview|Docket 26-008-TF]] on Ironwood inclusion — the single remaining external dependency. - Whether any post-Act-373 order in 24-072-U addresses Strategic Investment designation directly — Order No. 9 was issued 2025-04-18 (about one month after Act 373's signing); the docket's later orders (post-No. 9) may address it. Worth retrieving the docket's most recent orders to check. - The Independent Monitor proposal directed at Ordering ¶5 (filed within 60 days of Order No. 9) — would be relevant for tracking how the project proceeds and what governance structure attaches.