(The Center Square) – A Louisiana Public Service Commission confidentiality rule is facing renewed scrutiny as Entergy Louisiana keeps key data center power forecasts out of public view.
Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis said the commission should revisit its rule allowing utilities to file documents as “Highly Sensitive Protected Material,” arguing the designation is being used too broadly to shield information that ratepayers have a right to see.
“This is a problem that I’ve had with the commission, is we’ve allowed the utilities to just operate under our highly sensitive and confidential requirement,” Lewis said in an interview.
The concern comes as Louisiana regulators are being asked to evaluate billions of dollars in electric infrastructure tied to new data centers, while the public still cannot see one of the most basic numbers behind the debate: how much power those projects are expected to use.
Entergy’s quarterly load forecasts filed with the Louisiana Public Service Commission are treated as confidential and do not disclose the utility’s expected load growth in the public version of the filings. The latest filing goes further, saying even the non-confidential version will not include the expected load from Meta’s planned data center in Richland Parish, one of the largest economic development projects in state history.
Entergy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The commission’s rule allows certain documents to be filed confidentially if they contain highly sensitive market information. Lewis said there are legitimate reasons to protect some business information, especially during active negotiations for power purchase agreements or competitive bids.
But he said routine load forecasts are different.
“To me, I don’t believe any of this is highly sensitive or market information,” Lewis said. “This is your predictions. This is how much industrial growth you are expecting.”
Entergy and Meta have not publicly disclosed the expected electricity demand for Meta’s Richland Parish data center from the beginning. The project has become central to a broader debate nationally over whether new data centers and other large-load customers will pay for the infrastructure needed to serve them, or whether some costs will be shifted onto existing ratepayers.
On Tuesday, the Alliance for Affordable Energy and Union of Concerned Scientists asked the Public Service Commission to subpoena Meta for documents tied to Entergy’s proposal to build more than $14 billion in generation and transmission resources for the Richland Parish data center. The Sierra Club is representing the groups.
They argue Entergy’s application relies heavily on claims about Meta’s expected investment, permanent jobs, power demand, sustainability goals and financial guarantees, but that Entergy cannot substantiate much of that information on its own.
The groups are seeking Meta records showing projected investment and permanent jobs, evidence supporting the data center’s electricity needs, load factor and variability, communications about the sustainability agreement and information about Meta assets backing its guaranty.
They argue the information must come directly from Meta because “the Commission cannot fairly evaluate the reliability of Entergy’s assertions” without obtaining it from “its actual source.”
Investor-owned utilities are required to file regular updates on electricity demand over time. Those forecasts are supposed to help regulators understand how electricity demand is changing and whether utilities are planning properly to serve it.
But if the public versions do not disclose expected load growth, Lewis said the filings fail to provide meaningful transparency.
“I think it’s time for the commission to really look at this rule, because so many people try to overly redact things, and it’s ridiculous,” Lewis said. “There’s a time and place for what is sensitive market information.”
Lewis said sensitive pricing details in a pending deal may deserve protection because disclosure could affect future negotiations. But he said utilities have increasingly used confidentiality claims to block information that should be part of the public record.
“Over the years, at least in my tenure, I’ve watched utilities find a reason to redact any and everything, calling it market sensitive,” Lewis said. “But your load forecasting is not market sensitive to me.”
The confidentiality dispute also overlaps with Gov. Jeff Landry’s new executive order directing Louisiana Economic Development to develop taxpayer and community protection rules for data centers and other large-load projects.
That order calls for companies to fund the generation, transmission and infrastructure needed to serve their projects and for state officials to evaluate whether large projects’ demands on resources are balanced against their expected benefits.
But it begs the question of how that balance can be judged without public access to the assumptions behind it.
The Public Service Commission is also considering broader rules for large-load customers, including possible tariffs that would determine how data centers and heavy industrial users pay for power, transmission upgrades and other infrastructure.
Lewis said the confidentiality rule should be part of that discussion.