Entergy Corporation issued the following announcement on Nov. 24.
Entergy Louisiana, LLC has completed the purchase of the Washington Parish Energy Center, an approximately 361-megawatt facility that will deliver a modern, cost-effective, low-carbon and reliable source of power to the company’s grid.
Constructed by a subsidiary of Calpine Corporation, the natural gas-powered plant is located near Bogalusa and will operate as a peaking facility.
“We continue to seek opportunities to add to our clean-energy portfolio, and the Washington Parish Energy Center is another step in us meeting those goals,” said Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO. “The plant also helps ensure we continue to deliver reliable power to our customers at some of the lowest rates in the country.”
On April 21, 2017, Entergy Louisiana and Calpine signed a plant purchase and sale agreement, which was unanimously approved by the Louisiana Public Service Commission. The total cost of the plant is approximately $261 million.
The unit will provide Entergy Louisiana with needed peaking and reserve generating capacity. The company currently depends upon older, less efficient natural gas-powered plants to help meet peak demand, but start-up times make them less effective as peaking resources. Modern combustion turbines like the two in Washington Parish are specifically designed to start and ramp up quickly to meet customers’ immediate energy needs.
“We extend our thanks to Entergy Louisiana for being a valued partner during the development and construction of this facility,” said Caleb Stephenson, Calpine executive vice president and co-head, commercial operations. “This project demonstrates Calpine’s commitment to develop and deliver commercial solutions for our utility customers, and we look forward to working with Entergy again.”
Entergy Louisiana, LLC provides electric service to more than 1 million customers and natural gas service to more than 93,000 customers in the greater Baton Rouge area. It has operations in southern, central and northern Louisiana. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation, an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.9 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of $11 billion and approximately 13,600 employees.
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