# APSC Docket 26-008-TF — Entergy Arkansas GAJA Rider (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 26-008-TF**, Entergy Arkansas's Generating Arkansas Jobs Act Rider 2026 Annual Update. These are docketed public regulatory records, treated as Tier-1 primary evidence under the wiki's evidence standard and stored in `raw/psc/`. This docket — not the base rate case — is where the cost of Entergy Arkansas's new generation is actually charged to customers. ## What's inside - [[GAJA Rider 2026 Annual Update]] — Doc. 36, the REDACTED Direct Testimony of [[Matthew R. Morey]]. Sets the rider's 2026 amount: $110.4 million. **The priority document of this retrieval.** - [[APSC Staff Testimony on the GAJA Rider]] — Doc. 62, the Responsive Testimony of [[Mark Herring]] for the [[APSC General Staff]]. The Commission Staff's critique. - [[Attorney General Testimony on the GAJA Rider]] — Doc. 63, the Direct Testimony of [[Greg R. Meyer]] for the [[Office of the Arkansas Attorney General]]. The ratepayer advocate's critique. - [[Entergy Rebuttal Testimony on the GAJA Rider]] — Doc. 67, Morey's rebuttal. ## The GAJA rider in brief The **[[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]]** (Rate Schedule No. 73) lets Entergy Arkansas recover the cost of new generation from retail customers *outside* a rate case, including a return on Construction Work in Progress — customers pay a return on plant before it serves load. The 2026 Annual Update sets a **revenue requirement of $110,440,542** — a return on **$1.24 billion of construction-in-progress** for three new plants: the Ironwood combustion turbine (gas), Jefferson Power Station (gas), and Arkansas Cypress Solar & Battery ([[GAJA Rider 2026 Annual Update]]). The cost is allocated across the four standard retail rate classes by the Production Demand Allocation Factor (Residential 39.39%, Large General Service 34.91%, Small General Service 24.98%, Lighting 0.72%) — a **$5.77/month increase for a typical residential customer**, falling on all 738,836 retail customers. Entergy's filing nowhere ties the new generation to a data center, hyperscale, or large-load customer; its justification is purely the statutory "strategic investment" framework. ## The contested testimony The 2026 update drew two challenges, both ingested here: - The [[APSC Staff Testimony on the GAJA Rider|APSC General Staff]] argues one of the three plants — the Ironwood combustion turbine — was never designated a "strategic investment" by the Commission and is therefore ineligible for rider recovery; excluding it plus a rate-of-return correction would cut the requirement by **$34.4 million**, to $76.1 million. - The [[Attorney General Testimony on the GAJA Rider|Attorney General]] argues Entergy used an unreasonably low short-term-debt balance, overstating the return charged to customers on the $1.24 billion of construction-in-progress. Notably, **neither the Commission Staff nor the Attorney General argued that data-center or large-load customers should bear the new-generation cost.** Both critiques concern the *amount* and the *financing method*; the cost remains socialized across all retail ratepayers. Entergy's [[Entergy Rebuttal Testimony on the GAJA Rider|rebuttal]] concedes the rate-of-return correction and rejects the short-term-debt argument. This contested testimony was filed ahead of the docket's evidentiary hearing; the hearing transcript (Doc. 74) was not retrieved this session. ## The two dockets together This docket was ingested alongside [[psc/docket-26-008-tf-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 26-001-U]], Entergy Arkansas's base rate case, filed nine days earlier. Read together they answer the investigation's central question — who pays for the new generation: - The **base rate case (26-001-U)** resets conventional rates and, by the cost-of-service method, **excludes special-contract customers** — the form a hyperscale data center's electric service takes — from cost allocation. - This docket, the **GAJA rider**, is the actual new-generation cost-recovery vehicle: it charges **all** retail customers $110 million a year, with no data-center customer named as a driver or a contributor. - In the rate case, Entergy's CEO separately claims the Google and AVAIO data-center deals "provide more than $1.7 billion in savings for EAL customers" ([[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony]]). The public record thus shows ratepayers the new-generation charge in full, but not the data-center contracts that Entergy says offset it: those are confidential special rate contracts, and the one GAJA schedule that could disclose a large customer's payment — Filing Requirement 16, Non-CIAC Customer Payments — is sealed under Ark. Code Ann. § 23-2-304. This cross-docket gap is a candidate for a dedicated synthesis page. ## What was not retrieved The 301-page transcript of the 2026-04-29 evidentiary hearing (Doc. 74), J. David Palmer's rebuttal testimony (Doc. 68), the Commission's orders, and all sealed CONFIDENTIAL/HSPI filings were not retrieved this session. > [!note] Update — 2026-05-22 deep-dive > The Commission's six orders and Palmer's rebuttal were retrieved in the [[psc/docket-26-008-tf-2026-05-22/_overview|26-008-TF hearing deep-dive production]] later the same day, along with the hearing-transcript filing notice (which discloses that the actual 301-page transcript is not available via the APSC e-filing system). ## People and orgs - [[Entergy Arkansas]], [[Arkansas Public Service Commission]], [[APSC General Staff]], [[Office of the Arkansas Attorney General]] - [[Matthew R. Morey]], [[Mark Herring]], [[Greg R. Meyer]], [[J. David Palmer]] ## Concepts - [[Generating Arkansas Jobs Act (GAJA) rider]], [[Cost-of-service study]] ## Events - [[2026-03 Entergy Files the GAJA Rider Annual Update]] - [[2026-04 APSC Staff and Attorney General Contest the GAJA Rider]] ## Open questions / follow-ups - The megawatt capacities of Ironwood, Jefferson Power Station, and Arkansas Cypress — and any data-center load justification for them — are in CECPN Dockets 24-072-U, 25-047-U, and 25-054-U. - The 2026-04-29 hearing transcript (Doc. 74) and the Commission's final order would show how the Ironwood and financing-cost disputes were resolved. - Filing Requirement 16 (Non-CIAC Customer Payments) is sealed — the one place a large customer's payment toward the new generation could be disclosed.