# Who Pays for Entergy's New Generation The Arkansas Public Service Commission's regulatory record on Entergy Arkansas's new generation now spans eight docketed proceedings. Read together, they answer the investigation's central question — **who pays for the $1.24 billion of construction work in progress for the three new generation plants (Ironwood / LC5, Jefferson Power Station, and Arkansas Cypress Solar) — and reveal both the public mechanism and the structural seal that hides the offsetting customer-payment side**. The short answer: **all 738,836 retail customers pay the full revenue requirement of the new generation through the GAJA Rider, while at least one hyperscale data-center customer (Google's Altitude Capital subsidiary) is paying contractual rates that, by EAL's own arithmetic, are intended to offset some portion of those costs over time — but the offsetting payment amounts, allocation percentages, contract terms, and the very classification of those payments as "Contributions in Aid of Construction" (CIAC) versus "other form of payment" are sealed**. The Commission has formally questioned the sealing-friendly classification EAL and Staff stipulated; final ruling is not yet issued. ## Status **Both of this synthesis's formerly-bracketed mechanisms are now resolved — T001 by Orders No. 9/11 in 25-055-P (issued 2025-12-04 / 2026-01-29, retrieved 2026-06-11 after a documented currency gap), and T002 by Order No. 7 in 26-008-TF (2026-06-04):** **T001 — CIAC classification (Section IV) — RESOLVED (Orders No. 9 and 11, retrieved 2026-06-11).** [[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments]] was resolved by **[[Google SRC Order No. 9 Final Approval and CIAC Ruling|Order No. 9]]** (2025-12-04) and **[[Google SRC Order No. 11 Rehearing Ruling|Order No. 11]]** (2026-01-29): the SRC was approved without modification, but the Staff–EAL stipulated payment treatment was **denied** as non-compliant with § 23-4-1304(x) — the Commission finding that it would "benefit EAL and Google, not EAL's other customers" — and a **life-of-Cypress amortization with comparable benefits to all ratepayers was forced** (compliance filed 2026-02-05; the schedules remain HSPI-sealed). Statement B's substance prevailed; Statement A's label survived. The wiki carried this as "pending" until 2026-06-11 because the 2026-05-22 docket capture was truncated — see the tension page and Section X. **T002 — Ironwood Strategic Investment designation (Sections I.3 and III.1) — RESOLVED 2026-06-04.** [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement]], twice-dialecticized ([[D002 Synthesis]], [[D004 Synthesis]]), was resolved by **[[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]]** (2026-06-04): the Commission held no prior designation finding is required for a § 23-4-1304(w) transition facility and itself found "Ironwood qualifies as a strategic investment under Ark. Code Ann. § 23-4-1303(10)" (pp. 21–22). The ~$33.9M stays in the rider; the approved revenue requirement is **$109,977,691** ([[Revised GAJA Rider Rate Schedule 73]]). Status: `resolved-via-Order-No-7`. See Section IX. The T001- and T002-dependent passages in Sections I.3, III.1, and IV are now settled history — see Sections IX and X for the resolutions. What remains provisional is only the *quantification*: the sealed schedules (FR-16, the revised CKE-3/CKE-4, Bethel Table 1) still prevent independent verification of the net ratepayer outcome. ## I. The two-docket public framework ### The base rate case excludes special-contract customers [[psc/docket-26-001-u-2026-05-22/_overview|Entergy Arkansas's base rate case (Docket 26-001-U)]] resets standard retail rates effective with the first billing cycle of January 2027. The headline ask is a **$44.6 million / 1.92% increase** on a retail revenue requirement of **$1,997,481,780**, allocated by [[Matthew S. Klucher]]'s [[Class Cost of Service Study|Class Cost of Service Study]] across the four standard retail rate classes: | Class | Proposed change ($) | % of class revenue | |---|---|---| | Residential | $243 | **0.00%** | | Small General Service | $38,310,118 | 8.12% | | Large General Service | $6,278,957 | 1.21% | | Lighting | ($67) | **0.00%** | | **Total** | **$44,589,251** | **1.92%** | ([[26-001-U Doc 47 Volume 7 Schedules H-1 to H-5|Schedule H-1]]) The structural finding from Klucher's study: **special-contract customers are excluded from the public cost-of-service study by design**. Klucher's testimony states: "I also excluded the load data for customers served under special rate contracts as they are not served under standard retail rates and are not included in cost allocation as part of the CCOS Study" ([[Class Cost of Service Study]], p. 30). The Schedule G-1 cost-of-service workpaper in [[26-001-U Doc 47 Volume 6 Schedules G|Doc. 47 Volume 6]] allocates a $11.7B retail rate base across the four standard classes plus Wholesale — with no special-contract or hyperscale customer class. But the [[26-001-U Doc 47 Volume 1 Application and Schedules A-B|test-year rate-base Construction Work in Progress (Schedule B-8)]] in the same Doc. 47 **explicitly names data-center-related transmission and storage projects**: "Avaio Digital Ctr-Instl 115kV," "Avaio Digital Partner LR Data," "Gum Springs: Bld 115kV SS," "Gum Springs: Bld 115kV SwSub," "Gum Springs Land Acquisition," "EAL West Memphis – BESS Install," and "Arkansas Cypress Solar North." **The cost of building these transmission and storage assets to serve hyperscale data centers flows into the rate base allocated across the standard rate classes — even as the special-contract revenue side stays out of the cost-of-service study.** ### The GAJA Rider socializes new-generation cost across all customers [[psc/docket-26-008-tf-2026-05-22/_overview|The GAJA Rider 2026 Annual Update (Docket 26-008-TF)]], filed nine days after the base rate case, is the operative mechanism for charging customers the cost of new generation. It sets the 2026 rider at a **revenue requirement of $110.4 million** — predominantly a return on **$1.24 billion of Construction Work in Progress** for the three new plants ([[GAJA Rider 2026 Annual Update]]): - [[Ironwood]] / Lake Catherine Unit 5 — 446 MW natural-gas combustion turbine; in-service 12/2028 - [[Jefferson Power Station]] — combined-cycle combustion turbine at White Bluff; in-service 12/2029 - [[Arkansas Cypress]] — 600 MW solar + 350 MW battery storage; in-service 12/2028 The $110.4M is allocated across the four 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%) — adding **about $5.77/month to a typical residential customer's bill**. **The GAJA Rider's 102 pages name no data-center, hyperscale, or large-load customer as a driver or contributor** ([[psc/docket-26-008-tf-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 26-008-TF surface production]]). The justification is purely the statutory "Strategic Investment" framework of Act 373 of 2025. ### The contested testimony — and what was NOT contested In [[psc/docket-26-008-tf-2026-05-22/_overview|the GAJA Rider docket]], two parties challenged the 2026 update: - [[APSC Staff Testimony on the GAJA Rider|APSC General Staff (Mark Herring)]]: would exclude Ironwood from the rider, cutting recovery by ~$33.9M. - [[Attorney General Testimony on the GAJA Rider|the Attorney General (Greg R. Meyer)]]: would correct the cost-of-debt assumption. **Neither Staff nor the Attorney General argued that data-center or large-load customers should bear the new-generation cost.** Both challenges concern *amount* and *financing method*, not allocation. The cost remains socialized across all retail ratepayers. After the [[2026-04 APSC Evidentiary Hearing on the GAJA Rider|2026-04-29 evidentiary hearing]], the Commission's first post-hearing order ([[Order No. 6 Legislative Council Report|Order No. 6]], 2026-05-12) was procedural. **The merits ruling issued 2026-06-04: [[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]] approved the update, kept Ironwood in the rider, and rejected the AG's financing challenge** — see Section IX. ### The Ironwood Strategic Investment designation question — surfaced by [[D002 Antithesis]] The Staff/EAL dispute over [[Ironwood]] inclusion is the central [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002]] tension. The dialectic on T002 ([[D002 Synthesis]], 2026-05-24, verdict: `bracketed-because-(w)-text-and-Commission-ruling-pending`) **substantively weakened** Palmer's reading even as the headline classification question remained live pending the Commission's substantive ruling — a ruling that has since issued (see the bracket-lifted note at the end of this subsection and Section IX). Three findings the prior draft of this synthesis did not capture: **The (10)(A) chapeau requirement.** § 23-4-1303(10)(A) defines Strategic Investments as those "**approved by the Arkansas Public Service Commission**" under specific statutory authorities and for four enumerated public-interest purposes (growth/economic development; reliability; nuclear license extension; dispatchable generation adequacy). Palmer's rebuttal cites this chapeau text directly ([[Palmer Rebuttal on Ironwood]], p. 4) but Palmer's "per se inclusion" argument from (10)(B)(i)'s 100 MW threshold renders the chapeau's "approved by the Commission" language and its four enumerated purposes surplusage — a construction-canon problem Palmer's rebuttal does not address. The dialectic's antithesis subagent surfaced this point by reading Palmer's own primary source against him; the synthesis's verdict treats this as a substantive defect in Statement A's reading even though the headline question remains bracketed. **The comparator-orders structural finding.** The Commission's CECPN orders for the other two GAJA Rider plants — [[Cypress Order No. 4 CECPN Approval]] (Cypress Solar) and [[Jefferson Order No. 5 SREA Limited Intervention]] (Jefferson Power Station) — each contain a dedicated **"Strategic Investment Findings under § 23-4-1303(10)(A)-(C)"** section making the designation finding explicit. The Commission's own framing in the Jefferson order describes that proceeding 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 "seeking to establish" concedes that designation is an adjudicative endpoint the utility seeks and the Commission grants, not a self-executing label triggered by capacity. The Ironwood [[psc/docket-24-072-u-ironwood-2026-05-22/_overview|24-072-U]] Order No. 9 — which Palmer cites repeatedly at pp. 20, 25-26, 44, 53 — granted the CECPN but addressed no parallel Strategic Investment Findings section. The asymmetry between the Cypress / Jefferson CECPN orders and the Ironwood CECPN order is structurally significant. **The Commission's own "assuming Commission approval" framing.** [[Order No. 6 Legislative Council Report|Order No. 6 in 26-008-TF]] frames its directives "assuming Commission approval" of the rider — a textual concession that the Commission itself does not yet treat the rider's Ironwood inclusion as settled. Palmer's "prior Commission recognition" anchor (the bill-impact directive in 25-049-TF Order No. 4) is in the same posture: an information-gathering step "assuming approval," not the approval itself. *(Historical note: at D002 time the § 23-4-1304(w) text was not yet in the corpus; it was retrieved 2026-05-24, and [[D004 Synthesis|D004]] re-ran the analysis on the complete corpus.)* **The bracket lifted 2026-06-04**: [[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]] answered the minimum-content question — the approving order itself can carry the § 23-4-1303(10) finding, and no designation litigation is required for a (w) facility. See [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement]] (`resolved-via-Order-No-7`) and Section IX. ## II. The CEO's $1.7B savings claim — what's substantiated, what isn't [[Laura R. Landreaux]]'s direct testimony in [[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony|Doc. 48 of 26-001-U]] makes the corpus's first reference to specific data-center deals: > "[The Google and AVAIO data-center projects] **provide more than $1.7 billion in savings for EAL customers** through reasonable rates to the customer that also provide benefits to all of EAL's customers through contributions to fixed costs that EAL's current customers otherwise would bear." This claim names two customers: **the Google data center site in West Memphis** (served via subsidiary [[Altitude Capital, LLC]]) and **the AVAIO data center site in Pulaski County** ([[AVAIO Digital Partners|AVAIO Digital Partners]]'s Project Leo). The $1.7B figure is not derived in the public testimony. What's substantiated in the public record: - The existence of a Google / Altitude Capital electric service agreement. - The existence of an [[psc/docket-25-055-p-special-contract-2026-05-22/_overview|Altitude Capital Special Rate Contract proceeding (Docket 25-055-P)]]. - The fact that Cypress Solar was specifically conditioned by Altitude Capital — per [[Cypress Order No. 4 CECPN Approval|Cypress Order No. 4]] (p. 4): "Cypress Solar is crucial to EAL's long-term resource plans for all customers, but particularly an economic development customer, **Altitude Capital, LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc (Google), that requires Cypress Solar to be included in EAL's generation portfolio as a condition for locating in EAL's service territory**." - Per [[Palmer Direct on the Google SRC]] in 25-055-P, EAL had **executed 161 MW of incremental load** as of 2025-07-01 ([[Bethel Direct on JPS Industrial Load Growth|Bethel's Public Affairs testimony in 25-047-U]]). - RECs from Cypress Solar will be "retired proportionately on behalf of Google during the term of the Special Rate Contract" ([[Cypress Order No. 4 CECPN Approval]]). - Google "is incorporating demand flexibility in its operations to assist during times when the grid is constrained" ([[Palmer Direct on the Google SRC]], p. 5) — i.e., curtailment commitments. What's sealed: - The dollar amount Google / Altitude Capital pays. - The percentage of Google's data-center load served by Cypress Solar — sealed and contested. - The Initial Term / Effective Date / termination-fee provisions of the SRC. - The Ratepayer Impact Measure (RIM) test results. - The Year-Over-Year Industrial Load Growth Table 1 in Bethel's JPS testimony. - The customer-payments table at Filing Requirement 16 (Non-CIAC Customer Payments) of the GAJA Rider. The $1.7B claim cannot be tested against the public record. The mechanism by which it is claimed to be operational — Google's payments offsetting embedded costs other customers would otherwise bear — is the specific issue the Commission has now formally challenged in [[Google SRC Order No. 6 CIAC Questions|Order No. 6 of Docket 25-055-P]]. ## III. The CECPN evidence — what justified the new generation The three Strategic Investment plants each have a distinct justification story in the public record: ### Ironwood / Lake Catherine Unit 5 (Docket 24-072-U) **Justified primarily by federal consent decree, not data-center load.** Per [[Ironwood REDACTED Application|the Application]] (Exhibit F, §1.2): "The proposed LC5 will replace the legacy, gas-fired 522 MW LC4 facility that entered service in 1970. **LC4 is required to be deactivated no later than December 31, 2027, consistent with a federal consent decree.**" LC5 is a **446 MW** natural-gas combustion turbine, in-service December 2028. The Application's purpose-and-need framing is environmental compliance plus general "electrical load growth, service reliability, and customer service options." The CECPN application was filed **November 1, 2024** — before Act 373 was passed (signed 2025-03-20, with emergency clause taking effect immediately). This is the timing fact [[Palmer Rebuttal on Ironwood|Palmer's rebuttal]] in the GAJA Rider docket relies on to argue that LC5 is eligible for rider recovery under § 23-4-1304(w) without a separate Commission Strategic Investment finding. The [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002 dialectic]] surfaced two substantive weaknesses in this reading that the synthesis's prior draft did not engage (see Section I.3 above for the full discussion): (a) Palmer's "per se inclusion" argument under § 23-4-1303(10)(B)(i)'s 100 MW threshold renders the § 23-4-1303(10)(A) chapeau's "approved by the Commission" requirement surplusage — a construction-canon problem visible in **Palmer's own primary source** at p. 4; and (b) the comparator orders for Cypress ([[Cypress Order No. 4 CECPN Approval]]) and Jefferson ([[Jefferson Order No. 5 SREA Limited Intervention]]) each contain dedicated "Strategic Investment Findings under § 23-4-1303(10)(A)-(C)" sections that no Ironwood order matches. **The actual text of § 23-4-1304(w) was retrieved 2026-05-24** (primary public record, [Act 373 of 2025 enrolled bill](../../web%20archive/2026-05-24/arkleg.state.ar.us/act-373-of-2025.md)). It is a **three-condition test for recovery eligibility — not a Strategic Investment designation waiver**. All three conditions (1)+(2)+(3) must be met: costs not pre-included; pre-Act application for approval under one of four pathways; AND a Commission order entered after January 1, 2025 approving the application. The (w) provision presumes the resource IS a Strategic Investment under § 23-4-1303(10); it does not on its own confer Strategic Investment status. **The dispositive question then shifted** to whether Ironwood's [[psc/docket-24-072-u-ironwood-2026-05-22/_overview|24-072-U]] Order No. 9 (the CECPN grant — cited extensively by Palmer at pp. 20, 25-26, 44, 53; retrieved 2026-05-24, see [[docket-24-072-u-order-9-2026-05-24/_overview|Ironwood Order No. 9 CECPN Grant]]) substantively makes findings on the (10)(A) purposes (reliability and dispatchable-generation adequacy being the most plausibly satisfied prongs for an LC4 replacement). T002 was interim-bracketed on that question (`bracketed-because-Order-No-9-and-Commission-ruling-pending`) until **2026-06-04, when [[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]] resolved it**: the Commission made a fresh § 23-4-1303(10) finding inside the approving order rather than re-characterizing the Order No. 9 UFEEPA findings, mooting the equivalence question. T002 status: `resolved-via-Order-No-7` — see Section IX. ### Jefferson Power Station (Docket 25-047-U) **Justified by industrial load growth — including, indirectly, the data-center load — but the load-growth data is sealed.** [[Bethel Direct on JPS Industrial Load Growth|John P. Bethel's Public Affairs testimony]] frames JPS as the first Arkansas CECPN proceeding explicitly seeking Strategic Investment designation under Act 373 ([[Jefferson Order No. 5 SREA Limited Intervention|Order No. 5]]). Bethel testifies: - EAL has a dedicated economic development team partnering with [[Arkansas Economic Development Commission|AEDC]] and the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce. - The "Highly Sensitive Table 1 — Year-Over-Year Industrial Load Growth" (percentages 2026 through 2030) is **filed under HSPI seal**. - "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." - **"Since submission of the 2024 IRP, as of July 1, 2025, EAL has executed new electric service agreements totaling 161 MW of incremental load"** — almost certainly the [[Altitude Capital, LLC|Altitude Capital]] / Google agreement. - "Even without any of the anticipated incremental load growth, EAL will still need JPS" — the "with or without" framing designed so JPS does not require explicit data-center justification. JPS is in service December 2029, at the existing White Bluff station near Redfield in Jefferson County. ### Arkansas Cypress Solar (Docket 25-054-U) **The first Arkansas CECPN order to explicitly name a specific data-center customer as the driver of a Strategic Investment.** Per [[Cypress Order No. 4 CECPN Approval|Order No. 4]] (p. 4): "EAL states that Cypress Solar is crucial to EAL's long-term resource plans for all customers, but **particularly an economic development customer, Altitude Capital, LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc (Google), that requires Cypress Solar to be included in EAL's generation portfolio as a condition for locating in EAL's service territory.**" Cypress is a **600 MW solar PV array + 350 MW BESS** on ~3,000 acres in Jefferson County across the Arkansas River from White Bluff coal. Cypress interconnects at the White Bluff 500 kV substation, **bypassing the MISO interconnection queue** via transfer of transmission rights from the coal plant — a procedural accommodation of Google's preferred timing. Designated Strategic Investment under § 23-4-1303(10)(C) (renewable resource clause). Approved with Independent Monitor (IM) oversight ([[Cypress Order No. 5 Independent Monitor Consolidation]] consolidated IM review of all three plants into the new Docket 26-033-U). Cypress is the resource whose CWIP appears as "Arkansas Cypress Solar North — $192,530" in the [[26-001-U Doc 47 Volume 1 Application and Schedules A-B|test-year Schedule B-8]] of the base rate case. ## IV. The Special Rate Contract — the offsetting payment side [[psc/docket-25-055-p-special-contract-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 25-055-P]] is **the most consequential single docket in this investigation**. It is the proceeding where the financial terms of Google's contribution to Cypress Solar are litigated — and where the Commission has formally challenged the Staff-EAL stipulation on how those payments are classified. Per [[Palmer Direct on the Google SRC|Palmer's direct testimony]]: Google began discussions with EAL in **May 2024**; the data center is in West Memphis; the SRC is critical because EAL has **insufficient capacity** to serve Google without building Cypress Solar; the SRC commits EAL to develop Cypress, and Google to financially support the development through its SRC rates; Google "has a right to be served (if it wishes to be served and can pay for such service)." The Staff-EAL stipulation ([[Google SRC Order No. 5 Cypress Inextricability|Order No. 5]]) treats Google's transmission payments as Contribution in Aid of Construction (100% Google) but classifies Google's *generation*-related payments as **"other form of payment"** that "exceed the rates Google would otherwise pay under the Large General Service rate schedule during its ramp period" — to be recognized as offset revenue over Cypress's life rather than deducted from rate base. ### The Commission's challenge — Order No. 6 in 25-055-P [[Google SRC Order No. 6 CIAC Questions|Order No. 6]] (2025-11-05) cites Ark. Code Ann. § 23-4-1304(x)(2)(A) — "A payment by a customer or customers for any portion of any strategic investments through a contribution in aid of construction **shall be deducted from the cost of the strategic investments capitalized and recovered through rates**" — and asks the parties pointed questions: - "**Why should the transmission capital investment needed to serve Google be considered a CIAC while the generation capital investment needed to serve Google should not be considered a CIAC?**" - "**How can these payments be considered 'for electric service' before Google's West Memphis data center is constructed and in service?**" - "**Distinguish a payment to 'financially support the development' of a project from a contribution in aid of the construction of a project?**" The Commission also directs eight RIM-test sensitivities (Maximum Contract Demand vs Minimum Bill Demand × with/without ITCs × CIAC-10yr vs other-form-over-life-of-Cypress) and asks EAL to disclose "**the percentage of Google's data center load to be served by Cypress Solar**." **The classification matters.** If Google's payments are CIAC under § 23-4-1304(x)(2)(A), Cypress Solar's rate base is reduced immediately by Google's contribution, and the GAJA Rider charges other customers a smaller amount. If they're "other form of payment" under § 23-4-1304(x)(2)(B), Cypress's full cost stays in rate base / GAJA Rider, and Google's offsetting revenue is recognized over Cypress's useful life (decades). The two treatments are present-value-equivalent under one set of assumptions; the per-year rate impact on other customers is very different. **EAL and Staff's stipulation prefers the non-CIAC treatment, which keeps Cypress's nominal rate base larger and the GAJA Rider charge to other customers higher.** The Commission's challenge tests whether that approach actually satisfies the statute. ### The parallelism problem — surfaced by [[D001 Antithesis]] The [[D001 Synthesis|dialectic on T001]] surfaced a problem with the asymmetric classification that this synthesis's earlier draft did not capture: **EAL's own witness uses the same statutory predicate on both sides of its accounting line**. [[Dalrymple Direct on the Google SRC]] (Doc. 17, 2025-09-05) characterizes the transmission CIAC payments as made "in advance of EAL's provision of service to Google" — using the identical "financially support the development" framing that Hunt's testimony invokes to label the generation payments as not-CIAC. The accounting asymmetry between transmission (treated as CIAC) and generation (treated as "other form") does not track any visible statutory distinction in § 23-4-1304(x)(2)(A); the statute speaks of "any portion of any strategic investments" without an asset-class qualifier. EAL's defense of the asymmetry has to do work that Dalrymple's own framing makes harder: if pre-service payments "in advance of EAL's provision of service" are CIAC for transmission, the timing-based "for electric service" predicate Hunt invokes for generation collapses under the symmetry. This is the live core of [[Google SRC Order No. 6 CIAC Questions|Order No. 6]] Question 1(d) ("Why should the transmission capital investment needed to serve Google be considered a CIAC while the generation capital investment needed to serve Google should not be considered a CIAC?") — and the gap remains live on the existing record. The dialectic does **not** settle the classification. Statement A's asset-class-asymmetry defense (single-purpose Google transmission vs. system-wide Cypress Solar serving the broader EAL portfolio) and Statement B's statute-is-asset-class-agnostic attack are both textually defensible on the public record; what would resolve the question is the Commission's ruling on the Order No. 6 record (pending) and the unsealing of the HSPI RIM-test sensitivities directed in Question 3 (which quantify the per-customer cost delta between CIAC-amortized-over-ten-years and "other form"-amortized-over-Cypress's-life). See [[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments]] for the full tension record and [[D001 Synthesis]] for the dialectic verdict. The Commission's classification ruling in 25-055-P has not issued as of 2026-06-10. ## V. What remains sealed — the gaps in the public record | Item | Where sealed | What it would show | |---|---|---| | Filing Requirement 16 (Non-CIAC Customer Payments) of the GAJA Rider | [[Order No. 2 Interim Protective Order]] Category I — "names of individual customers... terms of individual contracts, individual usage or individual prices" | The dollar amount Google / Altitude Capital is paying toward GAJA Rider plants | | The Altitude Capital SRC itself (Doc. 26 of 25-055-P, HSPI) | HSPI seal under § 23-2-316 / 23 CAR 462-404 | All commercial terms — rates, demand, term, ramp schedule, termination fees | | Elbe Exhibit CKE-4 (HSPI) in 25-055-P | HSPI seal | Initial amortization schedule for the regulatory liability | | Hunt Exhibit / direct (HSPI) in 25-055-P | HSPI seal | EAL's analysis of the CIAC vs other-form payment classification | | Bethel Table 1 (HSPI) in 25-047-U | HSPI seal | Year-Over-Year Industrial Load Growth percentages 2026–2030 | | HSPI Application in 24-072-U (Ironwood); HSPI testimony in 24-072-U | HSPI seal | LC5 cost details; the "Cunningham" / "Fielder" / "Cullipher" findings Palmer cites for Strategic Investment criteria | | HSPI Application in 25-047-U (Jefferson); HSPI testimony | HSPI seal | JPS cost details and the specific load-growth attributions | | HSPI Application in 25-054-U (Cypress); HSPI testimony | HSPI seal | Cypress cost details, Google's allocation percentage, and the RIM-test inputs | | 26-008-TF hearing transcript (Doc 74) — **not online** | Physical hold at Commission Secretary's office | Oral testimony on Ironwood Strategic Investment status, AG cost-of-debt challenge, any data-center discussion at the hearing | | 25-054-U hearing transcript (Doc 100) — **not online** | Physical hold at Commission Secretary's office | Oral testimony on Cypress, Altitude Capital, the RIM test | | LPHLDS Annual Reports (Doc 43 of 22-032-TF, HSPI) | HSPI seal | Names of customers taking service under Rate Schedule 69 | ## VI. The "who pays" answer The public record establishes the following: 1. **All 738,836 EAL retail customers pay the full GAJA Rider 2026 revenue requirement — approved 2026-06-04 at $109,977,691** ([[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]]; [[Revised GAJA Rider Rate Schedule 73]]) — allocated by the Production Demand Allocation Factor. Residential customers pay $5.74/month at 1,000 kWh ($0.00574/kWh); SGS ($0.00686/kWh), LGS ($1.21/kW), and Lighting ($0.00294/kWh) pay their classes' shares. 2. **Special-contract customers — including Altitude Capital / Google — are excluded from the standard cost-of-service allocation** ([[Class Cost of Service Study]]). 3. **The cost of building transmission and storage specifically to serve hyperscale data centers (AVAIO Project Leo, Project Pulse / Gum Springs, the West Memphis BESS) is included in the standard rate base** flowing into all four rate classes (Schedule B-8 in [[26-001-U Doc 47 Volume 1 Application and Schedules A-B|Doc. 47 Volume 1]]). 4. **Arkansas Cypress Solar — one of the three GAJA Rider Strategic Investments — was approved specifically because Google's Altitude Capital required it as a condition for locating in Arkansas** ([[Cypress Order No. 4 CECPN Approval]]). Its $192,530 of test-year CWIP is in the public rate base; its full Strategic Investment cost flows through the GAJA Rider. 5. **Google IS making payments under the SRC**, and the EAL-Staff stipulation classifies 100% of Google's transmission costs as Contribution in Aid of Construction (deducted from rate base) but classifies Google's *generation*-related payments as "other form of payment" (offset over Cypress's useful life). **The Commission has formally questioned this asymmetric treatment.** 6. **The amounts, the percentage of Google's load served by Cypress, the RIM-test outputs, the Filing Requirement 16 customer-payments table, and Bethel's Table 1 are all sealed.** They would, if disclosed, allow the public to independently verify or rebut Entergy's "$1.7B savings" claim. They are not currently disclosed. 7. **No party in any of the eight dockets has argued that data-center or large-load customers should bear the new-generation cost as a class.** Staff and AG challenges in the GAJA Rider docket concern *amount* and *financing*. Staff's stipulation in 25-055-P accepts EAL's classification. The intervenor most likely to litigate the allocation question — SREA — was granted only **limited** intervention in 25-047-U and is denied access to HSPI material. **The bottom line**: The public regulatory record is structured such that ratepayers see the full GAJA Rider charge on their bills and the full per-class allocation in the base rate case, but the data-center customer's offsetting payments — the half of the bargain that supposedly produces "$1.7 billion in savings" — are sealed. Whether the net effect is favorable to ratepayers is, at present, a question the regulatory machinery has structured so the public cannot independently answer. The Commission's [[Google SRC Order No. 6 CIAC Questions|Order No. 6 in 25-055-P]] is the first formal regulatory signal that the asymmetric sealing-friendly classification may not satisfy the statute. The substantive Commission ruling on that question is not yet in the public record. ## VII. Update (2026-06-03): Entergy's Order No. 6 response — "publicly disclosed contributions: None" On 2026-06-01 Entergy filed its [[Entergy Order No. 6 Response|response to Order No. 6]] in 26-008-TF (Tier-1, retrieved into `raw/psc/` on 2026-06-03). Three points harden the documentary base under this synthesis: - **"Publicly disclosed contributions: None"** for all three GAJA Rider strategic investments — Ironwood, Jefferson, and Arkansas Cypress (`26-008-TF_76_1.pdf`, p. 4). This is the first Tier-1, on-the-record statement that **no publicly disclosed third-party contribution offsets the new generation** charged to all 738,836 retail customers. It is a direct confirmation of the Section V-VI sealing thesis: whatever Google/Altitude pays toward Cypress sits in the *sealed* Filing Requirement 16 / SRC, not in any public contribution figure. The "None" answer means nothing is *publicly* disclosed — not that no payment exists in sealed form. - **Affordability, quantified.** The same filing reports **94,893 EAL customer disconnections in 2025** and a monthly average of **116,789 customers in arrears** ($34,631,383/month; $296.53 average per customer in arrears, $167.15 median) — a Tier-1 hardship denominator for the "who pays" question. The combined GAJA residential typical-bill increase (+$5.74 Year 1, cumulating to +$20.10/14.35% by Year 5) lands on a customer base with ~95,000 annual disconnections. - **~41 permanent jobs for ~$3.9B.** Across the three plants (Ironwood 5, JPS 21, Cypress 15), the "Generating Arkansas Jobs Act" rationale yields **41 permanent positions** for the ~$3.9B of generation recovered from ratepayers — a datapoint for the Act's jobs framing. Per-plant Tier-1 figures (est. total / Commission benchmark): Ironwood $700.2M / $542.3M; JPS $1.60B / $1.512B; Cypress $1.605B / $1.6015B. These do not change the bracketed T001 status; they corroborate the synthesis's conclusion with the strongest Tier-1 evidence yet on the *public* side of the ledger. See [[Entergy Order No. 6 Response]]. *(T002 was subsequently resolved — Section IX.)* ## VIII. Tier-2 corroboration — corporate, legislative, and judicial (added 2026-06-04) The eight-docket Tier-1 record above is the evidence of what the APSC and Entergy actually *did*. Three independent **Tier-2** channels — the parent companies' own SEC filings, the enabling statutes' legislative record, and federal cost-allocation case law — now corroborate the mechanism and supply surrounding context. None is Tier-1 evidence of an Arkansas regulatory act; each contextualizes the docket record, and each was archived 2026-06-04. ### The buildout is data-center-driven — by Entergy's own SEC disclosure Entergy Corporation's FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 2026-02-19; the combined filing covering Entergy Arkansas as a registrant subsidiary) carries a data-center-specific risk factor in the company's own voice: new generation **and transmission** investments are made "to support large-scale data centers" and "depend[] on a limited number of such customers" ([Entergy 10-K FY2025, Tier 2](../../web%20archive/2026-06-04/www.sec.gov/entergy-10-k-fy2025.md), Item 1A). The same filing's segment data shows Utility "expenditures for additions to long-lived assets" jumping from $5.97 billion (2024) to **$8.21 billion (2025)** — the capital footprint behind the $1.24B of CWIP recovered through the GAJA Rider. This is the first Tier-2 confirmation, from the utility's parent, that the generation-and-transmission buildout is data-center-load-driven and concentrated in "a limited number" of customers — precisely the customers whose offsetting payments are sealed (Section V). Alphabet's FY2025 10-K independently documents the demand side: it is "entering into significant leasing arrangements with third party operators" and expects to "significantly expand our investment in property and equipment, including our technical infrastructure" to meet AI compute demand ([Alphabet 10-K FY2025, Tier 2](../../web%20archive/2026-06-04/www.sec.gov/alphabet-10-k-fy2025.md)) — but it names no Arkansas site, and the shells are private, so it does **not** bear on [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend|T003]]. ### The legislature enabled both the cost-shift and the tax break — one Senate sponsor behind both The GAJA Rider exists because of Act 373 of 2025 (SB 307); the data centers' tax treatment because of Act 548 of 2025 (HB 1444). The legislative record shows: - **The rider statute nearly failed.** SB 307 lost its first Senate third-reading vote 17-11 (2025-03-05) before passing the Senate 23-9 (2025-03-12, emergency clause 27-1) and the House 77-13 (2025-03-18) ([SB 307 / Act 373 record, Tier 2](../../web%20archive/2026-06-04/arkleg.state.ar.us/sb307-act-373-gaja-legislative-record.md)). Sponsors: Sen. Jonathan Dismang and Rep. Les Eaves. - **Act 548 widened the giveaway and exempted the data centers' electricity.** It lowered the qualified-data-center investment threshold from $500M to $100M, created a new $2B "qualified large data center" tier, and exempted "Electricity used by a qualified data center" from sales and use tax ([Act 548 enrolled, Tier 2](../../web%20archive/2026-06-04/arkleg.state.ar.us/act-548-of-2025.md); see [[Act 548 (2025)]]). DFA scored it "Revenue neutral." - **The same senator carried both.** Sen. Jonathan Dismang (R, SD-018) sponsored Act 373 *and* Act 548 — the statute socializing the new-generation cost across all 738,836 retail ratepayers and the statute exempting the data centers' own electricity purchases from tax. ### Federal precedent: the APSC may keep costs off ratepayers — and recently did The "who pays" question has a directly relevant precedent. In *Entergy Arkansas, LLC v. Doyle Webb*, 122 F.4th 705 (8th Cir. 2024), EAL sought to recover a ~$135M FERC refund from its retail customers; the APSC refused and ordered a refund *to* ratepayers, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding the "APSC has the power to ensure that public utilities, including [Entergy Arkansas], can only recover costs that are reasonably necessary in providing utility service to ratepayers" ([*Entergy Arkansas, LLC v. Doyle Webb*, 122 F.4th 705 (8th Cir. 2024), Tier 2](../../web%20archive/2026-06-04/www.courtlistener.com/entergy-arkansas-v-webb-8th-cir-2024.md)). The commissioners who prevailed — [[Doyle Webb|Webb]], [[Katie Anderson|Anderson]], and [[Justin Tate|Tate]] — are the same panel now deciding the CIAC classification ([[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments|T001]]) and the Ironwood designation ([[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002]]). The case establishes that the APSC has both the authority and a recent, judicially-affirmed track record to decline socializing a cost to ratepayers; whether it exercises that authority on the sealed Google generation-payment classification is the open question on which Section IV turns. ### A comparator: other states make the load-causer pay Arkansas's choice to socialize new-generation cost is not the only available model. In Kentucky, the Public Service Commission approved (Oct. 2025) East Kentucky Power Cooperative's **Data Center Power tariff**, which creates a dedicated data-center customer class designed to "prevent other cooperative members from paying for infrastructure ... to serve data centers" and to "ensure data centers bear the cost of new infrastructure dedicated to their service"; and Kentucky **HB 593 (2026)** would require large data centers to **prepay** any infrastructure cost so "those costs are not passed onto other existing utility customers" — the explicit "pay their own way" principle. See [[Large-Load Cost-Allocation Comparators]] for the full comparison. These out-of-state models (Tier-2/Tier-3 comparators) sharpen what is distinctive about the Arkansas GAJA Rider: it recovers the new-generation cost from all retail classes while the data-center offset stays sealed. ## IX. Update (2026-06-10): Order No. 7 — the rider's first annual cycle closes with the cost intact On **2026-06-04** the full Commission issued [[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]] in 26-008-TF, the merits ruling this synthesis had been provisional on. Entergy filed the [[Revised GAJA Rider Rate Schedule 73|revised Rate Schedule 73]] on 06-05 and [[Staff Compliance Testimony on the Revised GAJA Rider|Staff verified compliance]] on 06-08 ([[2026-06 APSC Order No. 7 Approves the GAJA Rider Annual Update|event]]). Four consequences for the "who pays" answer: 1. **The full cost survives review.** Of the $110.4M filed, the only customer relief is Staff's $463,000 arithmetic correction — the approved revenue requirement is **$109,977,691**, a 0.4% trim. Staff's $33.9M Ironwood exclusion and the AG's CWIP-financing recommendation were both rejected. The contested annual review of the rider's first cycle altered the socialized cost by less than half a percent. 2. **T002 resolved against the exclusion.** "Nothing in Act 373 specifically requires a finding that a particular investment is a 'Strategic Investment' prior to a utility's Annual Update for a facility which falls under Ark. Code Ann. § 23-4-1304(w)," and "the Commission finds that Ironwood qualifies as a strategic investment under Ark. Code Ann. § 23-4-1303(10)" (`26-008-TF_77_1.pdf`, pp. 21–22). Every future pre-Act-373 resource inherits this template; post-Act resources get designation inside their CECPN orders. 3. **The Commission described its own hands as tied by Act 373.** Rejecting the AG: "While the Commission shares the concerns of Mr. Meyer, Ark. Code Ann. § 23-4-1304(m)(1)(B) requires that the balances of the short-term debt are to be based on EAL's actual capital structure" — "Act 373 does not grant the Commission the authority" (pp. 22–23). Read with the *Webb* precedent (Section VIII): the APSC retains general authority to keep imprudent costs off ratepayers, but **inside the GAJA framework the legislature pre-committed the financing terms** — the contest space the statute leaves is prudence/refunds under § 23-4-1304(h)/(v) against the Commission's benchmarks (Ironwood: $700.2M estimate vs. $542.3M benchmark — a $157.9M gap the order's own refund caution flags), plus the new five-year-projection and Independent-Monitor directives (Ordering ¶¶4–6). 4. **The remaining live forums shift.** With the rider's 2026 cycle closed, the open cost-allocation contests are: the [[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments|T001]] CIAC ruling in 25-055-P (still pending); the base rate case ([[2026-06 Staff Proposes November Hearing Schedule in the Rate Case|Staff's proposed schedule]]: Staff/Intervenor direct 2026-08-05, public comment hearings **Batesville 10/20** and **El Dorado 10/27**, evidentiary hearing 11/4–5); the Independent-Monitor prudence track (26-033-U); and the 2027 Annual Update (first with mandatory five-year bill-impact projections). ## X. Update (2026-06-11): the Google SRC final orders — found months late, and worth the wait A live-docket re-check on 2026-06-11 discovered that 25-055-P had reached final decision **before this investigation began**: REDACTED **Order No. 9 (2025-12-04)** and **Order No. 11 (2026-01-29)**, with compliance closed 2026-02-05 ([[psc/docket-25-055-p-final-order-2026-06-11/_overview|the final-order tranche]]). The wiki's "most important pending regulatory action" framing was a propagated currency error (truncated 2026-05-22 docket capture). The substance: 1. **The SRC was approved without modification** — the RIM tests, including the Commission-ordered MBSA sensitivities, "show positive results (1.0 or above)," Staff-verified. 2. **The Commission rejected the stipulated payment treatment in language stronger than this synthesis had predicted:** EAL's witnesses' descriptions were "consistent with the ordinary and plain meaning of a CIAC"; Staff's own witness conceded it "would have looked very much like a CIAC"; and "the purposes of treating these contributions as 'another form of payment' is to **benefit EAL and Google, not EAL's other customers** ... customers would benefit from having these contributions treated as a CIAC" (Order No. 9, pp. 74–76). 3. **The remedy split the difference:** EAL kept the "other form of payment" label but was forced — over its rehearing petition — onto "a schedule that is consistent with the life of the Cypress Solar assets" with comparable benefits to all ratepayers (Order No. 11, p. 6). The revised schedules are HSPI-sealed: the *structure* is now statute-compliant; the *amounts* remain unverifiable. 4. **The institutional language is the corpus's strongest:** the deal "was presented as a fait accompli"; the ITC treatment was granted only "given the unique nature of the Agreement," expressly **non-precedential**, with the directive that EAL "**shall not contract away ratemaking treatments that are clearly within the province of the Commission**" — and §C records the Commission's "ongoing and significant concerns with the cumulative and increasing ratepayer impact" of the entire generation program, citing the cumulative-rate exhibit (MSK-2, 25-049-TF) and the prospective White Bluff gas repowering (Order No. 11, pp. 7–9). For the "who pays" answer: the Commission policed the *timing* of the offset (life-of-asset comparable benefits) and asserted authority over future deals — but the offset's *size* stays sealed, the ITCs ride EAL's negotiated schedule "for the benefit of a single customer," and the rider charges all 738,836 customers now. The sealing thesis of Sections V–VI survives both resolutions intact. ## Caveats - **The CIAC classification question — formerly the load-bearing bracketed item — is resolved.** See Section X and [[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments]] (`resolved-via-Order-No-9-and-Order-No-11`). The surviving caveat is quantification: the sealed FR-16 / CKE-3 / CKE-4 / Table 1 schedules still block independent verification of the net outcome. *(The original caveat text follows as history.)* - **The CIAC classification question was the load-bearing bracketed item.** This synthesis is explicitly provisional on [[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments]]. Per the [[D001 Synthesis|D001 dialectic verdict]] (2026-05-24, `bracketed-because-final-order-pending`), both the Staff–EAL "other form of payment" stipulation and the Commission's CIAC challenge remain live on the existing record. The bracket lifts when the Commission issues its final classification ruling in [[psc/docket-25-055-p-special-contract-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 25-055-P]] and the HSPI RIM-test sensitivities directed by [[Google SRC Order No. 6 CIAC Questions|Order No. 6]] Question 3 are unsealed. Until then, the central "who pays" arithmetic for Cypress Solar is bracketed — not merely "an open question among several" but the specific contested mechanism on which the synthesis's Section IV depends. See [[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments]] `## Resolution status` for what the dialectic settled, sharpened, and bracketed. - **Confidence: medium**. The mechanism is supportable on the public record (testimony, orders, statutory citations); the *amounts* and the *net outcome* are sealed. Where this synthesis makes quantitative claims, it cites the documentary anchor — and where the anchor is sealed, this synthesis says so. - **No claim that the SRC is unfair to ratepayers.** It may well be, on net, beneficial. The point is that *the public record does not allow independent verification* of the central financial claim in [[Entergy CEO Direct Testimony|the CEO testimony]]. A favorable answer to "who pays" requires either (a) the sealed information being made public via FOIA, regulatory challenge, or appeal, or (b) accepting EAL's representation on faith. - **The CECPN orders are precedent-setting.** Both [[psc/docket-25-047-u-jefferson-2026-05-22/_overview|the Jefferson docket]] and [[psc/docket-25-054-u-cypress-2026-05-22/_overview|the Cypress docket]] are characterized by the Commission as the first of their kind under Act 373. The disposition of [[Google SRC Order No. 6 CIAC Questions|Order No. 6 of 25-055-P]] sets the template for any future hyperscale SRC. - **The Ironwood Strategic Investment designation question — formerly the second load-bearing bracketed item — is resolved.** [[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]] (2026-06-04) kept Ironwood in the rider and made the § 23-4-1303(10) finding itself; [[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement|T002]] is `resolved-via-Order-No-7` (Section IX). Notably, the D002/D004 dialectical critique of Palmer's *per se* reading was never adjudicated — the Commission mooted it by making a fresh finding rather than holding the UFEEPA record sufficed. The residual watch item is rehearing/judicial review under § 23-2-422/-423. - **The Ironwood case is partly orthogonal to the CIAC question.** LC5 is justified by the federal consent decree on LC4, not by data-center load. The Ironwood Strategic Investment designation question ([[T002 - Ironwood Strategic Investment Designation Requirement]]) is therefore distinct from the Cypress / Altitude Capital / load-growth nexus that anchors the CIAC question ([[T001 - CIAC Classification of Google Generation Payments]]) — T001 remains bracketed pending the Commission's ruling in 25-055-P, while T002 was resolved by [[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]] (2026-06-04); both affect the 2026 GAJA Rider charge to all 738,836 retail customers. ## Open questions - ~~The final order in Docket 25-055-P — pending~~ **Issued 2025-12-04 / 2026-01-29 (Orders No. 9 and 11), retrieved 2026-06-11** — see Section X. The remaining target is unsealing the revised CKE-3/CKE-4 schedules. - ~~The final order in Docket 26-008-TF~~ **Issued 2026-06-04: [[Order No. 7 Approving the GAJA Annual Update|Order No. 7]]** — Ironwood included, cost-of-debt challenge rejected (Section IX). - The final order in [[psc/docket-26-001-u-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 26-001-U]] — pending — will set base rates effective 2027-01. [[2026-06 Staff Proposes November Hearing Schedule in the Rate Case|Staff's proposed schedule]] (Doc. 160, 2026-06-05): Staff/Intervenor direct 8/5; public comment hearings Batesville 10/20 + El Dorado 10/27; evidentiary hearing 11/4–5. - The CECPN final order in [[psc/docket-25-047-u-jefferson-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 25-047-U]] — not yet retrieved; would document Jefferson's Strategic Investment finding. - The hearing transcripts for [[psc/docket-26-008-tf-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 26-008-TF]] and [[psc/docket-25-054-u-cypress-2026-05-22/_overview|Docket 25-054-U]] — held physically at the Commission Secretary's office, not online. - ~~The 24-072-U Order No. 9 — not retrieved~~ **Retrieved 2026-05-24** ([[docket-24-072-u-order-9-2026-05-24/_overview|Ironwood Order No. 9 CECPN Grant]]). - The newly opened [[Cypress Order No. 5 Independent Monitor Consolidation|Docket 26-033-U]] (Independent Monitor consolidated review) — not yet ingested. - A FOIA challenge to Filing Requirement 16 sealing under § 25-19-105(f)(3), or an intervention-based appeal of the CECPN / SRC HSPI classifications, would be the procedural paths to test whether all of these specific items meet the statutory standard for sealing under § 23-2-316. - **The AVAIO Electric Service Agreement (new, 2026-06-11).** AVAIO's own website now states it has an **"[e]xecuted ESA with Entergy Arkansas for an initial 150 MW of grid power energized in April 2027,"** scaling to 1.1 GW by 2030 (Tier-3, first-party — see [[AVAIO Digital Partners]]). **No such agreement appears in any public APSC record.** Whether the AVAIO ESA is a Special Rate Contract requiring Commission approval (like the [[Altitude Capital, LLC]] SRC in 25-055-P), and where its terms sit in the sealed-filing architecture, is now a concrete, datable question for the rate case and for an APSC-records FOIA — the company itself has put the contract's existence on the public record.