Entergy power projects — all gas fired — make up nearly a third of the roughly 28 GW in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator’s fast-track interconnection queue, according to a Utility Dive analysis of the updated list released on Wednesday.
About 70% of Entergy’s proposed capacity additions, spread across Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, are designed to serve planned data center complexes, according to MISO’s summary of the projects in its Expedited Resource Addition Study process.
Entergy expects its retail sales will grow by 8.5% a year through 2030, partly driven by industrial load growth, according to the New Orleans-based company’s April 29 earnings presentation. The utility company said it expects to spend about $27 billion on new generation and $7 billion on renewables and storage through 2029.
Entergy projects in the ERAS process total nearly 9 GW in requested network interconnection, followed by Northern Indiana Public Service Co. at nearly 5 GW, or about 18% of the total, and Alliant Energy at about 3.3 GW, or about 13% of the total, according to MISO’s data.
Overall, gas-fired network interconnection capacity in the ERAS review totals 20.3 GW, or about 72% of the total. Battery, solar and wind capacity total 4.3 GW, 2.3 GW and 1.2 GW, respectively.
As part of the fourth cycle in its ERAS program, MISO is beginning to conduct interconnection reviews for about 3.7 GW of planned gas-fired, solar and storage capacity, the grid operator said Wednesday.
“ERAS continues to deliver meaningful progress by moving viable projects forward with greater speed,” Aubrey Johnson, MISO’s vice president of system planning and competitive transmission, said in a statement. “Each cycle reinforces its value as part of a coordinated strategy to meet evolving system needs.”
Entergy, NIPSCO and Alliant account for about 60% of capacity under MISO's fast-track interconnection review
MISO said it has accepted or is reviewing 58 projects totaling almost 28 GW into ERAS, which aims to bring power supplies online quickly to meet near-term grid needs. The process allows planned resources that meet eligibility criteria to sidestep MISO’s standard interconnection queue reviews.
Under the ERAS process, MISO is studying up to 15 projects per quarter on a first-come, first-served basis. MISO will study up to 68 projects before the program ends on Aug. 31, 2027.
So far, 25 projects totaling about 11 GW have completed generator interconnection agreements, with another 15 projects totaling 8 GW nearing completion, MISO said. The projects that have completed the ERAS process are expected to begin operating in 2027 or 2028, according to the grid operator.
