# GAJA Rider 2026 Annual Update The REDACTED Direct Testimony and Exhibits of [[Matthew R. Morey]], Manager, Regulatory Filings at Entergy Services, LLC (Doc. 36, filed 2026-03-06), in [[Entergy Arkansas]]'s [[psc/docket-26-008-tf-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 26-008-TF]]. It is the filing that sets the dollar amount of the **[[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]]** for 2026 — the mechanism that charges Entergy Arkansas's retail customers for the cost of new generation outside a rate case. This is where the cost of Entergy's generation buildout actually lands on customer bills. ## What's inside `26-008-TF_36_1.pdf` — 102 pages: Morey's transmittal letter and narrative testimony; **Exhibit MRM-1** (public Attachments 1–3 — the per-class rider rates and revenue-requirement summary, pp. 12–18); and **Exhibit MRM-2** (Filing Requirements 1–18, pp. 19–97, designated "highly sensitive" under APSC Interim Protective Order No. 2). This is the redacted public version; see "What is withheld" below. ## What the GAJA rider is > "The purpose of the GAJA Rider is to recover from retail customers EAL's costs associated with strategic investments as defined under Arkansas law and as designated by the Commission ('Strategic Investment'). The GAJA Rider is effective with June billing each year, and on or about March 1 each year, EAL must file an annual update with the redetermined strategic cost recovery rates ('Annual Update')." (p. 6) The rider is Rate Schedule No. 73. Its statutory basis is the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act, codified at Ark. Code Ann. § 23-4-1301 et seq.; the testimony quotes § 23-4-1304(w) on eligibility (p. 20). Critically, the rider recovers a **return on Construction Work in Progress (CWIP)** — customers pay a return on generation plant that is still being built, before any of it serves load. ## The three new generation projects The 2026 Annual Update recovers cost for three "strategic investments": > "This Annual Update includes generation and transmission strategic investments associated with the Ironwood combustion turbine, Jefferson Power Station, Arkansas Cypress Solar and battery." (p. 7) Each rests on its own Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need (CECPN) docket (p. 20): - **Ironwood combustion turbine** — gas; CECPN Docket 24-072-U; projected in service 12/2028. - **Jefferson Power Station** — gas; CECPN Docket 25-047-U; projected in service 12/2029. - **Arkansas Cypress Solar & Battery** — solar + battery; CECPN Docket 25-054-U; projected in service 12/2028. The filing does not state the megawatt capacity of any of the three; those figures are in the underlying CECPN dockets. ## The dollar amount and who pays > "The total proposed revenue requirement impact to EAL customers is $110.4 million." (p. 8) Precisely $110,440,542, which the docket transmittal puts at "8.6%" of Entergy Arkansas's current authorized retail revenue requirement (p. 2). It is dominated by a **Return on CWIP of $107,459,805 on $1,240,242,373 of Construction Work in Progress** (p. 15). The cost is allocated across the four standard retail rate classes by the Production Demand Allocation Factor — **Residential 39.39%, Small General Service 24.98%, Large General Service 34.91%, Lighting 0.72%** (Attachment 2, p. 14) — i.e., residential customers carry about $43.5 million of it. The proposed rider rates (Attachment 1, p. 13) are $0.00577/kWh residential, $0.00689/kWh small general service, $1.21/kW large general service, $0.00296/kWh lighting. > "The current change for an average residential customer with usage of 1,000 kWh per month is a $5.77 increase or a change of approximately 4.17 percent, as a result of this Annual Update." (p. 8) The transmittal letter states that combined with a proposed Nuclear Production Tax Credit Rider (Rate Schedule No. 74), the net residential increase is "$4.22 per month, or approximately 3 percent" (p. 1). As of 2026-01-31, **738,836 retail customers** are subject to the rider (p. 8). ## No data-center customer named The new generation in this filing is **not linked, anywhere in the 102 pages, to any data-center or large-load customer**. The terms "data center," "hyperscale," "large load," "AVAIO," and "Google" do not appear. The rider's stated justification is purely the statutory "Generating Arkansas Jobs Act / Strategic Investment" framework, and the $110.4 million is socialized across all retail customers by the standard demand allocator. The jobs reported as created so far are minimal — Ironwood 18, Jefferson Power Station 12, Arkansas Cypress 0 construction jobs (Filing Requirement 15, p. 94). ## What is withheld The substantive financial detail is Exhibit MRM-2, filed under seal as "highly sensitive" per APSC Interim Protective Order No. 2 (p. 6). One item is specifically relevant: **Filing Requirement Item 16, "Non-CIAC Customer Payments,"** discloses that Entergy Arkansas received "other forms of payment from customers" during the Rider Test Period, booked as a regulatory liability in FERC subaccount 2543GO (p. 8) — but "Customer specific information is marked highly sensitive consistent with Ark. Code Ann. § 23-2-304" (p. 95), and the customer table reads as blank in this redacted version. This is the one place in the GAJA filing where a specific large customer's payment toward the new generation could appear, and it is sealed. ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Matthew R. Morey]] — Manager, Regulatory Filings, Entergy Services, LLC; the witness. - [[Entergy Arkansas]] — the applicant utility. - [[Arkansas Public Service Commission]] — the regulator. - [[J. David Palmer]] — VP, Regulatory Affairs; signed the transmittal letter and Certificate of Service. ## Concepts invoked - [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]] — this filing is the investigation's anchor document for the concept. - [[Cost-of-service study]] — the GAJA rider recovers cost *outside* the base rate case [[Class Cost of Service Study]]. ## Events documented - [[2026-03 Entergy Files the GAJA Rider Annual Update]] — this filing. ## Cross-references - [[APSC Staff Testimony on the GAJA Rider]] and [[Attorney General Testimony on the GAJA Rider]] — the contested responses; APSC Staff would cut $33.9M by excluding Ironwood, and the Attorney General disputes the financing cost. - [[Entergy Rebuttal Testimony on the GAJA Rider]] — Morey's reply. - [[Class Cost of Service Study]] — the parallel base rate case; together the two dockets show conventional-class cost allocation (26-001-U) and new-generation cost recovery (this docket). ## Open questions / follow-ups - The megawatt capacities of Ironwood, Jefferson Power Station, and Arkansas Cypress are in CECPN Dockets **24-072-U, 25-047-U, and 25-054-U** — candidates for retrieval, and the place any data-center load justification for the new generation would be argued. - Filing Requirement Item 16 (Non-CIAC Customer Payments) is sealed; what customer paid, and how much, is not on the public record. - Exhibit MRM-2 is designated highly sensitive; the public version retrieved here nonetheless carries the schedule dollar figures.