Entergy has run into opposition in Arkansas over its plans to bild a new 754-megawatt natural-gas fired power plant southeast of Little Rock.
The State Attorney General, Tim Griffin, is among those opposing the project near Pine Bluff in Jefferson County. So is the staff of the Arkansas Public Service Commission.
Both asked the Arkansas Public Service Commission to deny Energy’s application, saying there is uncertainty about the cost and also a lack of protections for ratepayers. If the project were to receive approval, it would result in a $4.87 a month rate hike for residential customers. Entergy also wants authority to build a 600-megawatt solar farm across the Arkansas River from the site of the proposed power plant.
The plant would be adjacent to Entergy’s White Bluff coal-fired power plant which is scheduled to be closed by 2028. The closing is part of a 2021 settlement of a 2018 lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association.
Scott Norwood, a consultant to the Attorney General, accused Entergy of ignoring cheaper alternatives including the conversion of the White Bluff coal plant to natural gas.
“(Entergy) has not demonstrated that the cost of (Jefferson Power Station) is reasonable or that the project is the best available resource to meet the company’s forecast capacity needs beginning in 2030,” Scott Norwood, an energy consultant who filed testimony on behalf of Griffin’s office, said in his testimony, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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