# APSC Docket 26-001-U — Entergy Arkansas Base Rate Case (production overview) Four filings retrieved on 2026-05-22 from the [[Arkansas Public Service Commission]]'s public e-filing system (apps.apsc.arkansas.gov) for **Docket 26-001-U**, *In the Matter of the Application of [[Entergy Arkansas]], LLC for Approval of Changes in Rates for Retail Electric Service*. These are docketed public regulatory records, not a FOIA production; under the wiki's evidence standard they are treated as Tier-1 primary evidence and stored in `raw/psc/`. The application was filed 2026-02-27 — Entergy Arkansas's first base rate case in ten years. ## What's inside Four documents were retrieved and ingested (the docket holds far more; see "What was not retrieved"): - [[Class Cost of Service Study]] — Doc. 51, the Direct Testimony of [[Matthew S. Klucher]]. The Class Cost of Service Study: how the $2 billion revenue requirement and the $44.6 million increase are allocated across customer classes. **The priority document of this retrieval.** - [[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony]] — Doc. 48, the Direct Testimony of [[Laura R. Landreaux]]. The CEO's overview of the case — and the filing that names the Google and AVAIO data centers. - [[Proposed Rate Schedule Revisions]] — Doc. 54, the Direct Testimony of [[Caroline McNeal]]. The complete catalog of tariff changes; confirms no data-center rate class is created. - [[Order No. 4 Suspending Entergy's Rates]] — Doc. 93, the APSC order suspending the proposed rates pending review. ## The rate case in brief Entergy Arkansas seeks an **overall rate increase of 1.92% — about $44.6 million** — on a 9.9% return on equity and a roughly 52% debt / 48% equity capital structure ([[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony]], p. 13). The increase is allocated by [[Matthew S. Klucher]]'s [[Cost-of-service study|class cost-of-service study]] across the utility's four standard rate classes — Residential, Small General Service, Large General Service, and Lighting. The study found Small and Large General Service customers under-paying their cost of service and Residential and Lighting customers over-paying; the proposed rate design reallocates the surpluses so Residential and Lighting see a 0% rate-schedule change and Small General Service absorbs the bulk of the increase ([[Class Cost of Service Study]]). ## The data-center finding This docket is where the investigation's subjects first surface in a utility regulatory filing: - The CEO's testimony names **"the Google data center site located in West Memphis"** and **"the Avaio data center site in Pulaski County"**, states the projects "provide more than $1.7 billion in savings for EAL customers," and identifies **[[Altitude Capital, LLC]]** as "Google's subsidiary" on an electric service agreement ([[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony]], pp. 11–12). - Yet the cost-of-service study itself contains **no data-center, hyperscale, or large-load rate class**, and explicitly **excludes customers served under [[Special rate contract|special rate contracts]]** from cost allocation because "they are not served under standard retail rates" ([[Class Cost of Service Study]], p. 30). So the base rate case both asserts a large data-center benefit and, by its own method, keeps the data-center contracts outside the public cost-of-service picture. ## Procedural posture The application was filed 2026-02-27. On 2026-03-20 the Commission's [[APSC General Staff]] moved to suspend the rates, and ALJ [[N. Wesley Hunt]] issued [[Order No. 4 Suspending Entergy's Rates|Order No. 4]] suspending them under Ark. Code Ann. § 23-4-407(a) and directing the parties to propose a schedule with two public comment hearings before the evidentiary hearing. As of the 2026-05-22 retrieval the docket remained in its pre-hearing phase — the testimony-deadline and evidentiary-hearing schedule had not yet issued. ## The two dockets together Docket 26-001-U was ingested alongside [[psc/docket-26-001-u-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 26-008-TF]], the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act rider docket, filed nine days later. Read together they answer the investigation's central question — who pays for Entergy's new generation — in a way neither does alone: - **26-001-U** resets conventional rates and, by Klucher's method, walls off special-contract customers (the form a hyperscale data center's service takes) from the cost-of-service study. - **26-008-TF** is the actual new-generation cost-recovery vehicle: it charges **all** retail customers a return on $1.24 billion of construction-in-progress for three new power plants, with no data-center customer named. - The rate case's $1.7 billion data-center "savings" claim cannot be tested against the public record, because the contracts behind it are confidential special rate contracts. See [[psc/docket-26-001-u-2026-05-22/_overview|the Docket 26-008-TF overview]] for the rider mechanics. ## What was not retrieved The docket's REDACTED Application and its Schedule H cost-allocation workpapers (Doc. 47, nine parts), the remaining direct testimony (Docs. 49–64), and all sealed CONFIDENTIAL/HSPI filings were not retrieved this session. Special-contract and large-load ratemaking is handled in separate dockets — 23-025-P and 22-032-TF, both cited in Klucher's Exhibit MSK-1. > [!note] Update — 2026-05-22 deep-dive > Doc. 47 (all 9 volumes, 2,476 pages — the full REDACTED Application plus the Minimum Filing Requirement Schedules) was retrieved in the [[psc/docket-26-001-u-2026-05-22/_overview|26-001-U Doc 47 deep-dive production]] later the same day. The most important new findings: AVAIO Project Leo and Project Pulse (DC Devco) transmission projects appear as line items in the test-year CWIP (Schedule B-8); the depreciation rates for the GAJA Rider plants' transmission assets are being decided in this case (Application Item 12(f)); the 9.90% ROE is itself below what Entergy's own witness recommended. ## People and orgs - [[Entergy Arkansas]], [[Arkansas Public Service Commission]], [[APSC General Staff]] - [[Matthew S. Klucher]], [[Laura R. Landreaux]], [[Caroline McNeal]], [[N. Wesley Hunt]], [[J. David Palmer]] - [[Altitude Capital, LLC]], [[Google LLC]] ## Concepts - [[Cost-of-service study]], [[Special rate contract]], [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]] ## Events - [[2026-02 Entergy Arkansas Files Its Base Rate Case]] - [[2026-03 APSC Suspends Entergy's Proposed Rates]] ## Open questions / follow-ups - The Schedule H cost-allocation workpapers (Doc. 47) hold the granular functionalization detail behind Klucher's study. - Dockets **23-025-P** (Approval of a Special Rate Contract) and **22-032-TF** (Large Power High Load Density tariff) are where large-customer/contract ratemaking would appear. - The Google / [[Altitude Capital, LLC]] electric service agreement is the document that would let the $1.7 billion savings claim be tested.