# APSC Docket 25-047-U — Jefferson Power Station CECPN (production overview) The CECPN docket for the **[[Jefferson Power Station]] (JPS)** — Entergy Arkansas's combined-cycle combustion turbine (CCCT) at the existing White Bluff station site near Redfield, Jefferson County. **The first Arkansas CECPN docket explicitly seeking establishment of a generation facility as a strategic investment under Act 373** (per the Commission's [[Jefferson Order No. 5 SREA Limited Intervention|Order No. 5]]). Full Commission presiding. ## What's inside (curated subset) Seven filings: - [[Jefferson Order No. 1 Interim Protective Order]] — Doc. 3, 2025-08-01. The protective order for sealed filings. - [[Jefferson REDACTED Application]] — Doc. 8, 2025-08-01. **The 2,142-page Application + Exhibits.** Defines JPS as a CCCT at the White Bluff site. - [[Bethel Direct on JPS Industrial Load Growth]] — Doc. 10, 2025-08-01. **Critical testimony from EAL Public Affairs Director [[John P. Bethel]] on industrial load growth and economic development justification.** - [[Jefferson Order No. 2 Procedural Schedule]] — Doc. 47, 2025-08-12. Procedural schedule. - [[Jefferson Order No. 3 Discovery Schedule]] — Doc. 51, 2025-08-19. Adjusted discovery deadlines. - [[Jefferson Order No. 4 AEEC Intervention]] — Doc. 54, 2025-08-22. Grants AEEC intervention. - [[Jefferson Order No. 5 SREA Limited Intervention]] — Doc. 60, 2025-08-27. **The substantive order surfacing that this is the first CECPN proceeding establishing a generation facility as a Strategic Investment under Act 373.** ## Key takeaways ### JPS specifications - **Resource type**: Combined-Cycle Combustion Turbine (CCCT) — natural gas. - **Site: Redfield, Jefferson County, Arkansas** — at the existing **White Bluff** generating station. - **In-service date**: **December 2029** (per the Application). - **Strategic Investment status**: Application *explicitly* invokes Act 373 / Strategic Investment classification — first such filing. ### The industrial-load-growth narrative — Bethel's testimony The Application's "Purpose and Need" framing is identical to Ironwood's at the surface ("electrical load growth, service reliability, and customer service options"), but **Bethel's direct testimony is the public record's most explicit attempt to justify a CCCT by industrial / data-center load growth**: - "EAL has a dedicated **economic development team** that works closely with existing and potential customers... including the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce." - EAL's economic-development website: **https://goenergy.com/our-region/arkansas/** - The "Highly Sensitive Table 1 — Year-Over-Year Industrial Load Growth" (2026 through 2030, percent values) is **filed under PROTECTED SEAL** and the public version shows the table empty. - "Existing industrial customer loads are typically relatively flat year-to-year due to fairly predictable consumption patterns. So, **the year-over-year industrial class load growth reflected in Table 1 is notable and largely attributable to prospective new customer growth generally**, albeit not with respect to any particular individual prospective customer, and planned block load additions by existing customers." - **The single most-important public statement**: "since submission of the 2024 IRP, as of July 1, 2025, **I understand that EAL has executed new electric service agreements totaling 161 MW of incremental load**." This 161 MW is the closest the public record gets to disclosing the executed data-center electric service agreement (likely [[Altitude Capital, LLC]]'s, per [[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony]]). - **The "with or without" framing**: "even without any of the anticipated incremental load growth, EAL will still need JPS... the Mid-cycle IRP confirmed the need for JPS based on a far more conservative load forecast, and all load scenarios in the 2024 IRP (including the low growth scenario) require an in-service CCCT like JPS." Bethel's testimony is structured so that JPS is justified either way — under-need or with the data-center demand layered on top. - **Economic development projections**: 700–800 peak construction workers, 22 permanent positions, $18M sales tax during construction, $10M first-year property tax. "The potential for long-term economic development prospects (which could be orders of magnitude higher) that JPS would support and that EAL cannot serve without a new gas efficient combined cycle gas unit." - EAL's virtual open house webpage: **https://www.entergyarkansas.com/jeffersonpowerstation**, presented to public 2025-07-09. Notification published 2025-07-13 in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Pine Bluff Commercial. ### The Commission's framing of the docket Per the [[Jefferson Order No. 5 SREA Limited Intervention|Order No. 5]] (Doc. 60): "This Docket is the **first proceeding before the Commission where EAL is explicitly seeking to establish a generation facility (and associated transmission infrastructure) as a strategic investment eligible for rider recovery pursuant to Act 373**." This frames JPS as the precedent-setting CECPN proceeding for the Act 373 framework. ### What was NOT retrieved - The Commission's substantive **Order granting CECPN** — the final order with Strategic Investment findings. Multiple subsequent orders (Order No. 6 — referenced in [[Order No. 2 Interim Protective Order|26-008-TF Order No. 2]] for its transparency findings — plus the final approval order) were not retrieved this session. - The 2025-10-30 evidentiary hearing transcript (likely a "Veritext public notice" stub per the [[Hearing Transcript Filing Notice|26-008-TF]] pattern). - The direct and rebuttal testimony of Fielder, Bethel (HSPI portion), Ruiz, Cullipher, Morris (sealed exhibits). - The Staff/AG/AEEC/SREA testimony, including the sealed HSPI testimony from Bower (Daymark) and Norwood (AG witness). ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Entergy Arkansas]] — applicant - [[Arkansas Public Service Commission]] — decisional authority; [[Doyle Webb]] (Chairman), [[Justin Tate]], [[Katie Anderson]] sign Order No. 5 - [[John P. Bethel]] — Director, Public Affairs, Entergy Arkansas — Bethel-Direct sponsor - Kandice Fielder — Senior Manager, Resource Planning - [[Carlos Ruiz]] — VP, Power Development New Generation - Brad T. Cullipher — Manager, Transmission Planning - Amy L. Morris — Director, EAL Finance - Bradley J. Phillips — Senior Managing Consultant, Alliance Technical Group - [[APSC General Staff]] — Mark Herring, [[Thomas A. Martin]], Jeffrey D. Bower, Regina L. Butler - [[Office of the Arkansas Attorney General]] — Scott Norwood - Intervenors: AEEC (witness [[Elizabeth A. Stanton, PhD]]), Southern Renewable Energy Association (SREA, limited intervention; represented by Executive Director [[Simon Mahan]]) - Implicit: [[Altitude Capital, LLC]] / [[Google LLC]] (the 161 MW likely belongs here, but the customer is not named in the public testimony) ## Concepts invoked - [[Jefferson Power Station]] - [[Strategic Investment]] — first explicit CECPN Strategic Investment finding under Act 373 - [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]] — the rider into which JPS's CWIP flows - CECPN (Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need) - "Once in a generation economic opportunities" (per Bethel) ## Cross-references - [[GAJA Rider 2026 Annual Update]] — JPS is one of the three Strategic Investment plants - [[26-001-U Doc 47 Volume 1 Application and Schedules A-B]] — JPS depreciation rates also decided in the base rate case ## Role in T002 dialectics This docket — particularly [[Jefferson Order No. 5 SREA Limited Intervention|Order No. 5]] — surfaced load-bearing evidence for the antithesis position in [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002]] / [[D002 Antithesis]]: the Commission itself framed Jefferson as "the **first proceeding before the Commission where EAL is explicitly seeking to establish** a generation facility... as a strategic investment eligible for rider recovery pursuant to Act 373" — the Commission's verb usage ("seeking to establish") concedes that Strategic Investment designation is an adjudicative endpoint the utility seeks and the Commission grants, not a self-executing label triggered by CECPN findings. Combined with the dedicated "Strategic Investment Findings" section in [[Cypress Order No. 4 CECPN Approval]], this docket establishes the Commission's actual practice of discrete designation under Act 373 — practice that [[docket-24-072-u-order-9-2026-05-24/_overview|Ironwood Order No. 9]] does not match. The asymmetry was central to the antithesis arguments in both [[D002 Synthesis|D002]] and [[D004 Synthesis|D004]]. ## Open questions / follow-ups - **Table 1 — Year-Over-Year Industrial Load Growth (2026-2030)** — sealed under HSPI. The most important sealed exhibit in the public record on data-center load growth. - The 161 MW of new electric service agreements as of 2025-07-01 — the closest public reference to the data-center contract load. The customer name and contract terms are sealed. - The substantive Commission Order granting CECPN to JPS — not retrieved; would document any Strategic Investment finding (relevant to [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002]] as another data point on the Commission's practice of discrete designation).