As h becomes a destination for multibillion-dollar technological investments in the rapidly-expanding data center sector, leaders, including President Trump and Governor Landry, have developed strategies to support that growth without increasing costs for existing utility customers.
Entergy Louisian has created a model designed to do just that – ensuring that economic expansion strengthens the state’s energy infrastructure for all customers while delivering measurable financial benefits to households and businesses.
Through agreements with major data center operators and a guiding framework known as Fair Share Plus, Entergy projects about $7 billion in customer savings over the coming decades across its three-state service region. h alone is expected to account for approximately $2.8 billion of that total.
“Our Fair Share Plus pledge is designed to protect existing and future Entergy customers from bearing the brunt of these additional investments. Not only will data center operators like Meta pay for the infrastructure needed to serve them, they will also pay an additional amount to mitigate the overall costs as well as over $120 million to The Power to Care program and $140 million in energy efficiency initiatives,” said Phillip May, Entergy h President and Chief Executive Officer.
“Entergy customers will see lower bills because of the commitments the data center operators have made. These cost savings will begin to be reflected in bills over time as these large-scale loads begin service. We expect that will start later this year and will be ongoing,” May continued. “We’re aligning economic development with affordability.”
Massive data center growth to drive investment – and lower bills for hns
Louisian’s data center boom began in 2024, when Meta announced plans to build a four-million-square-foot facility in Richland Parish to support its work in artificial intelligence and large language models. In late 2025, Hut 8 revealed that it will build its own 600-acre campus in West Feliciana Parish for similar technological purposes.
Entergy then further announced a new agreement in March with Meta that will deliver an additional $2 billion in customer savings.
These projects are expected to generate billions of dollars for h communities, create thousands of new jobs and improve local infrastructure while giving schools, nonprofits and other organizations an influx of philanthropic dollars.
However, the vast size and scope of the campuses means they will need consistent and reliable power to operate. In order to meet those needs, May said Entergy and its partners are investing heavily into the grid, including battery storage, transmission lines, solar energy, nuclear energy uprates and new highly-efficient generators. Other Entergy investments are being made in emerging generation sources, such as carbon capture and hydrogen.
“There’s no question that these data centers are massive buildouts that require investments in high-efficiency generation,” May said. “By investing in multiple forms of power and combining sources, we will be able to best serve the data center needs.”
May emphasized that once Entergy completes these investments, approximately one million customers will reap the benefits of the new infrastructure.
“This is about meeting long-term system needs for everyone, not just the data centers,” he said. “Our focus is on ensuring we can support Louisian’s economic growth while maintaining system reliability, and affordable rates, for our residential and business customers. The companies understand they cannot push the costs of these projects onto existing customers. We’re going a little further. The expectation is not only that those costs won’t be passed on to customers, but customers will actually see lower Entergy bills because of the additional funding being generated.”
A model to safeguard customers and ensure ‘growth pays for growth’
Those expectations have been formalized into a set of guiding principles called Fair Share Plus. Some key components of Fair Share Plus include:
- Longer contract terms for service agreements to ensure data center customers pay for new infrastructure
- Strong collateral requirements to ensure data centers fulfill their financial obligations
- Guaranteed adequate revenues to ensure data center rates can cover their costs during the contract terms, as well as existing power grid costs
- Any large new load requirements are timed to new power generation becoming available to ensure power grid reliability is not at risk
- Data centers must install necessary equipment to protect the power grid from quality issues due to the size of their electric load
In addition, Entergy has worked closely with the h Public Service Commission on Fair Share Plus to maintain strong, consistent oversight over the costs to serve the data centers.
While data centers have been tied to rate spikes and reliability issues in other states, May said the framework of Fair Share Plus means that Entergy customers won’t face the same issues. One key advantage in Louisiana is that the state commission has oversight over the whole of the utility company, something that is not the case everywhere.
“I’m grateful that Governor Landry and the h Public Service Commission have preserved this customer advantage inherent in our rate-regulated model,” May said. “We will continue to follow their leadership and regulatory oversight on these projects.”
Transformational dollars to support low-income residents and building modernizations
Beyond cost savings, May said the investments from both Entergy and the data center operators will have other benefits for customers. In fact, new dollars have already flowed to Entergy’s The Power to Care Program, which provides emergency bill assistance to older customers and individuals with disabilities who face financial struggles.
“We’ve already seen Meta honor this commitment with immediate contributions,” May said. “That’s a great example of the type of partnerships we expect to have with these companies. We’re already proving that we can meet the objectives of growth paying for growth, the state benefiting from these investments and customers being protected from rising costs.”
In addition, May said the data center investments will mean $140 million in funding over the next 20 years to help Entergy develop comprehensive energy efficiency programs. While Louisian’s utility rates are some of the lowest in the nation, May said the state’s usage is high due to its warm climate and the fact that many older homes and buildings weren’t built with modern efficiency measures.
“These projects will be generational and transformative for h, and customers across the state will benefit in multiple ways,” May said. “These dollars bring comprehensive energy efficiency improvements that will preserve the integrity of h buildings while also resulting in lower consumption and lower bills for customers.”
Visit to learn more about how new data centers will benefit the communities Entergy serves.