Entergy promoted its response to Hurricane Beryl during its second-quarter earnings call Aug. 1, along with a pair of pending settlements with Louisiana regulators over rates and the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.

Entergy CEO Drew Marsh told investors to expect settlement filings soon at the Louisiana Public Service Commission to resolve Entergy Louisiana’s disputed rate case and claims of mismanagement at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in western Mississippi.

Marsh said the Entergy subsidiary System Energy Resources Inc. (SERI) and the Louisiana PSC have struck a $95 million settlement agreement in principle that will resolve their longstanding clash over Grand Gulf’s poor performance. SERI operates and owns 90% of Grand Gulf and sells the plant’s output to Entergy’s Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Orleans affiliates.

Louisiana regulators are the last to accept a settlement agreement related to Grand Gulf; officials in New Orleans, Mississippi and Arkansas already have accepted nearly $500 million in settlements. (See Entergy Earnings Call Focuses on La. Resilience Plan, Nuclear Outage and Settlements and Former Employee Details Failures at Entergy’s Grand Gulf.)

“Pending approval, this settlement substantially resolves the major litigation at SERI and removes an ongoing challenge for many of our stakeholders,” Marsh said. He said Entergy will file a full settlement agreement in the coming days and he expects the Louisiana PSC to address the settlement at its next business and executive meeting Aug. 14.

The PSC maintained for years that ratepayers are owed hundreds of millions of dollars because Entergy mishandled plant operations, undertook an expensive and excessive plant expansion, and engaged in improper accounting and tax violations that shifted costs to ratepayers.

Marsh said a second settlement with the PSC is on the horizon, this one involving Entergy Louisiana’s requested formula rate plan (FRP). He said the settlement involves Entergy dispersing $184 million in customer credits, which includes an increase in income tax benefits for customers, stemming from a 2016-2018 IRS audit of the utility.

The CEO said a successful settlement will mean the utility resolves “all of its outstanding base ratemaking proceedings,” including all issues with FRPs prior to the 2023 case.

Last year, Entergy Louisiana sought an approximately 3% rate increase from customers, or about $173 million (U-36959). The utility argued its recent FRPs have not provided it a “reasonable opportunity to recover the costs of serving its customers.”

Marsh said the two settlements will provide “important clarity” for stakeholders and will allow Entergy and Louisiana regulators to look ahead to focus on “capturing the significant growth opportunities in front of us.” Entergy has identified 5 to 10 GW of new hyperscale data center growth potential across its service territory, he noted.

“We appreciate the hard work of all parties to get to this point,” he said of the negotiations.

Marsh also said Hurricane Beryl in early July affected roughly half of Entergy Texas’ half-million customers. Uprooted trees caused most of the damage and outages, he said. (See MISO: Hurricane Beryl Caused Electrical Island in Texas.)

Entergy estimates it will recover about $75 million to $80 million in total Beryl-related costs.

“We brought a lot of experience and lessons learned from past storms into this effort, which led to timely, safe and cost-effective power restorations,” Marsh said.

He said the storm underscores the need for Entergy Texas’ recently filed Ready Resilience Plan, which calls for spending $335 million over an initial three-year period. However, he said about $200 million is contingent on a grant from the Texas Energy Fund.

Entergy Texas also plans to spend a combined $2.2 billion on new combustion turbine plants in Texas: the 754-MW Legend Power Station in Port Arthur, and the 453-MW Lone Star Power Station in Cleveland, Marsh said. Both plants are expected online in the summer of 2028.

Marsh also said Entergy will accelerate clean energy development, as exemplified by its early June joint development agreement with NextEra Energy Resources for up to 4.5 GW of solar and energy storage.

“Many of our large customers have clean energy goals, and we are expanding our clean energy capacity to support those objectives,” Marsh said.

Entergy reported second-quarter earnings of $49 million ($0.23/share) on an as-reported basis, or $411 million ($1.92/share) on an adjusted basis. This compared to second-quarter 2023 earnings of $391 million ($1.84/share) on an as-reported and an adjusted basis.

The company said the year-over-year decline was attributable mostly to a $317 million settlement charge stemming from a group annuity contract purchased in May to “settle certain pension liabilities.”