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medium of joint energy will come to order apologize for the delay but we had an importantowerPoint we
needed to get loaded so thank you for all being here on this beautiful cool day
you're your meter is running in case you're wondering the chair would introduce a motion to approve the minutes of the August6th meeting moved by
Senator Mcee is there a second Representative Beck Second all in favor say aye pose thank you that's approved
we will move on to item C discussion of data center development in Arkansas our first witness is Miss Rachel Wilson with Google. Miss
Wilson, I think we got your uhowerPoint loaded and please come to the table and if you'll pull that mic close to you and push that button and identify yourself for the record my name is Rachel Wilson and I'm
with Google. thank you ma'am. you're recognized to begin your presentation oh and you do have a handout that was also if people look if you don't have it ask the staff but you should also have a handn handout ok please proceed thank you good afternoon
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:35
Chairman Johnson, Chairman Mcairn members of the committeechnology never ceases to surprise us I
Speaker 7
1:39
will say after this so thank you so much for having me today it's great to be able to talk to you about Google's data centers more
broadly and are specific data centers that are under construction in Arkansas. I think there's a lot of unknowns or misconceptions about what a data center is and what it does it is not exclusively for the purposes of AI development Google's data centers power all of our products that we either give or sell to customers and I'm sure many of you in this room use many of those products you can see from these icons here those include searchch, Chrome cloud, Youube which my children cannot
get off of so I appreciate the the demands that's happening in my own house it's not just your'm glad to hear that gmail maps all of the things that we do in our daily lives using one of our many devices those google products are powered by google's data centers. we have32 locations for our owned and operated data centers across four continents. This map shows the data centers that are operational there are also a number of data centers that we have under construction that are not yet shown on this map but
when those facilities are energized we will add them here and we keep this page up to date on our website not a website gives information about our data centers and all of the locations more broadly if you're interested in a specific su if we were to go to the website we could
zoom in on that big bunch of dots in the US that's correct and you could see exactly where each
Speaker 7
3:12
of those dots are sighted there are a couple of locations here that are actually home to more than one data center so you can see the low country in South Carolina
that actually hosts two that are operational in one that's under construction so there are some facilities where one particular location hosts multiple sites. here in arkansas we have one data center that is currently under construction in West Memphis we announced that site last year. it represents a4 billion dollars capital investment from Google and we've partnered with Entergy to cover the full cost of service for our demand at that site entergy's analysis showed that over the
lifetime of our 20 year contract that contract will yield $1.1 billion in net benefits to Arkansas ratepayers and that contract also supports the development of a project called Cyprus solar which is a600 megawatt solar and350 megawatt battery storage facility as I mentioned that site is currently under construction we are undergoing grading and substation prep now but things change very rapidly and that site is expecting to be energized in 2027.
Here in littlettleRock we do have a site for data center development we're currently engaged in the very extensive due diligence process we are engaged with our stakeholders listening to the needs of the community and the desires around development at that particular site we had filed for a wetlands permit initially we've pulled that permit subsequently and are currently making the necessary modifications before we refile
as you can see from this chart and from the site map that doesn't yet show those data centers that are under construct or those data centers that are under construction are not yet shown on this map Google's energy demand is growing exponentially over time and it is this energy demand that is fueling demand in the markets for power from our utility partners. what are we doing about that a couple of things because we found that the traditional
utility model of building large scale generation projects that take multiple years aren't meeting the desire for speed to construct the infrastructure that Google needs to serve its customers so we've had to rethink some of the traditional business models for power we rely very heavily on our industry and utility partners to help us come up with these solutions to build projects that meet Goog g le ' s customer demand. We have a customer demand for specific types of energy and in
order to retain those customers we need to meet that demand and so we rely on our partners to help us think creatively implement these solutions build generation projects like cyprus solar but that could also include small modular reactors operates at existing nuclear units advanced storage at longer durations these new types of things that will enable clean power at scale and delivered to our customers
those policies come for come forward in our contract frameworks that we have with Entergy and others we have collaborated closely with a number of different utilities across the country to implement a certain number of principles to protect ratepayers against bearing the burden of Google's energy cost so those principles include long term commitments our contracts with our utilities are typically at least 15 years Our contract here with enterntery is 20 years it includes minimum billing demands
and what that means is we commit to paying a high percentage of our ultimate demand in minimum bills every month regardless of whether we use that volume of energy or not so when we say we're paying 80% of our contracted demand we will pay that regardless of whether our use is50%60% and if it's above 80% we'll pay the additional on top of those minimum bills we provide extensive upfront collateral and we have stringent
exit and termination fees so if Google decides that it's that Arkansas is no longer a feasible market and we need to exit that contract. oftentimes we we wind up paying the completion as if the contract were fulfilled and exit fees and we do that so that customers are not left holding the bill for infrastructure that we've asked the utility to develop to power our data centers so in this way we're helping to bring relief to repairs spreading the portion of fixed costs on the utility system over
our larger load which results in net savings to other ratepayers on the system Some of the energy highlights that all mention here we've partnered with a number of developers to bring new types of technology to the grid on the nuclear front we're looking at repowering existing facilities that have shut down across the US one of the most recent examples is our partnership with Nexxtera Energy to restart the Duanne Arnold power plant in Iowa we're also looking at development of small modular
reactors we have a partnership with an entity calledairos Energy for50 0 megawatts online by 2035, the first project broke ground last year that is with TVA in Tennessee and it is a fi0 megawatt project we're currently looking for a home for the additional450 megawatts and then we have a 200 megawatts partnership with Commonwealth Fusionystems the date on those technologies is still to be determined but we are looking to bring those forward as soon as possible.
we're partnering on advanced geothermal technologies this is primarily targeted in the west at this point though I understand that Arkansas has some advanced geothermal potential in the southern part of the state. We are collaborating with an entity called Fervo on 115 megawatt contracts for a first of aki project in Nevada and then we're also working on a number of different long duration storage projects so these are batteries that are capable of injecting power into the grid for sustained amounts of time Currently the standard is
lithium ion technologies which can release power for about four hours at maximum we're looking at projects that can do 8,12,24, even 100 hours and those will preserve reliability at lowest cost to customers and ratepayers in terms of the red the US transmission infrastructure is aging it needs replacement but construction of transmission lines is expensive and it takes a long time. So we've partnered with an entity calledctC Global
to look at reconductoring lines which enables more power to flow through on an expedited timeline we're looking at using Google's own AI capabilities to speed interconnection times to look at weather forecasting that enables more optimal power operations and unit commitments and then we're using demand response that means when there is a situation where the grid is strained we will reduce demand at our data center site to alleviate that constraint and lower wholesale prices for
customers that demand response is outlined in our west memphis contract with entergy so we agreed to a period of up to 10 hours for any event and then over 100 hours of the course of the year in which we will
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
10:49
reduce our data center demand if called upon by the utility then lastly
Speaker 7
10:56
I want to highlight the energy affordability work that we're doing here in Arkansas alongside the announcement in September for the west memphis datata Center we also announced our west
memphisnergy impact fund. That fund commits over 25 million or'm5 million dollars over five years to improve energy affordability for low income customers it is focused at this point on West Memphis and Crittenon County looking at weatherization and preweatherization so there's health and safety repairs that are needed to enable low income customers to qualify for weatherization services. we also announced just a few months
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
11:33
ago our commitment to an additional5 million dollars in
Speaker 7
11:38
health and safety improvements weatherization services community solar and energy efficiency upgrades for schools as part of our announcement about the Stee River facility. Steele River is the US's largest solar facility that is currently under construction in the town of Wilson and you can see that I've highlighted some of the partners that are enabling us to carry out these investments ICF who is entergy's implementation partner for energy efficiency services groundswell Crowwley'sridge
Development Council and Elevatenergyround swell has been particularly active in this space they've moved I think over40 homes off of their list and are looking at a waitlist of 250 at this point so they are moving as quickly as they can to get through that list by the end of 2026. but I've included this testimonial here and it says after being residents in our home for over30 years it's as if we've moved into our house again for the very first time with all the new windows and attic insulation and these are west memphis
residents whose home was recently retrofitted by groundswell and they agreed to talk about their story with Google and with you all. and I've just concluded with some views inside of our actual data centers so these are Google employees who you can see doing electrical repairs HAC repairs some welding so these are the people who are employed at Google's data centers just a small subset
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
13:04
with that I'm happy to take questions.
thank you M Wilson I had one just quick question you mentioned the advanced conductors for your transmission lines this is where we'll just say the wire I know it's may be some other kind of cable but the wires are being would be retrofitted to something that's more efficient and would either not eliminate but but diminish the amount of line loss over the distance that's it has to travel and my understanding that they
Speaker 7
13:41
essentially apply a coating to the existing wire which allows it more electrons to pass through that wire in any given moment
and and for people who aren't aware that I attended a a meeting where this was described it's there's a significant amount of line loss went from where something's generated to where it's final delivered to the the end user and that's efficiency that you know that's that's like adding more capacity if you can get this efficiency so that's without needing to build new infrastructure well we'll go straight to
questions uhpresentativeladyman you are recognized I'm over here way over here's up
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
14:18
there thank you Mr Chairman. a
couple of questions are any of your current data centers self-powered in other words do they have their own power source or are they all grid operated.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
14:34
that I showed you, there are no locations on that map that have onsite generation that is being
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
14:39
used to power the data center that is something that google looks at when we're
considering data center development policies have to be in in place in a state in order to enable that solution and so there are I think some locations in Texas where we're looking to construct a new data center and use onsite power for generation in general our our preference is to be grid connected and to work with our utility partners in the states in which we're located in
Speaker 32
15:09
order to bring those generation solutions to the grid and to other ratepayers
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
15:16
thank you for that one more Mr chairman if you could go go right ahead sir you know we we heard a lot of things and things in the newspaper. some I think are correct. I think some of them are not correct. one of the things that we read about is the water usage can are you able to answer, I mean can you give us an idea of water usage. I know some of the sites or the data centers recirculate their water can you give us an idea of how much water a
average sized data center or typical sized data center would use
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
15:54
high level and what I will say is that it's incredibly site specific but also developerc specific. there are some folks out there who are developing data centers who use the same technology in all of their sites google takes a different approach. Our approach is one that is very sitesific. it looks at the availability of the resource in the community, the quality of the resource in the community the existing infrastructure the need for any
potential upgrades and then we make those sciing decision s or the the infrastructure decisions around both constraints and opportunities so each of our data centers may use a technology that is unique to that particular site and that is absolutely an area where we will look for community input on the type of solution that
Speaker 7
16:34
they would want to see so would it be possible to put it in an area like northwest Arkansas where there's
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
16:42
very little water and is there a technique that you could use to do that? West
Chair
Unverified
16:47
memphis actually is using a dry cooling technology and that was not
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
16:52
the original plan but when faced with certain constraints on the system we had to pivot and then select that dry cooling so
Speaker 32
16:59
yes in areas that are water constrained there is an option for that
thank you thank youpresentative ladyman now when you say dry cooling is this you know like an old Vvolkswagen that's air cooled is it like that as
opposed to something that has a recirculating
liquid is that analogous to that
Speaker 7
17:23
and I will say that there's when you're looking at cooling solutions that useless water there's a tradeoff that comes with that because water is the most efficient way to cool anything that's hot and so when you're using dry cooled solutions you in turn using more energy. so we have to look at both sides of the coin so running that fan costs more
energy than running a water pump OK. great uhpresentative beck you're recognized
thank you Mr Chair I I had a couple of questions you you were talking about the coding
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
17:59
on the wire increasing the efficiency in the land law de decreasing the land loss for the transmission you didn't have a number I'm an engineer you didn't have a number is that like 20% I don't know off the top of my head but I'm happy to get back to you on
that after after this discussion. OK so that's
the so the next and you might just give it back to the
to the to the committee and that distributed out to us committee staff and we'll we'll see that
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
18:32
everyone gets the answer thank you the the second question is you were talking about your demand contract that you have and you and I'm I might have heard wrong so you said for you can reduce your demand down to help stabilize the grid for 10 hours
Speaker 32
18:50
for10 hours in a single event and then 100 hours in total over the course of
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
18:55
the year so it's 100 hours for the course of the year all right so just in general your other sites have you do you have similar contracts like that with at other sites and how has that played out in other words you know we've never used more than60 hours a year or something like that that's right it is the
Speaker 7
19:16
demand response is a relatively new provision that we're writing
into our contract so I believe entergy was the third utility with which we made this type of partnership agreement Indiana Michigan is another and the name of the third is escaping me at the moment but we're looking to do this in in increasing
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
19:38
amounts in new utility contracts as we are able there are certain services for data center customers that have less ability to be curtailed than others so you would want your
your google products to stay online and in emergency situations you want the emergency response team to still be there so those run through a data center so the ability to curtail is going to vary according to the site and the customers who are being served at that particular site but it is something that our team is actively working on to implement at as many
Speaker 7
20:10
locations as possible. one more if I may just this I'll tell you what I'll just get back into the I'll get back
into the go ahead and back and I'll cut you off I
think you're talking to so the the
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
20:25
question I had was in that looking at distribution lines versus transmission lines and I know in your statement you you I know that you guys are saying that that you're you're paying for all the the equipment to to serve your facility you energy you've worked out a contract with them so my question is this there's distribution
cost or distribution assets in infrastructure that that needs to maybe be increased or whatever like that and I'm I'm assuming you're paying for that because that's distribution but my question is on a bigger scale on the transmission for the transmission of of power in and out of the area where you're operating in and and this this work that you've done with the I think it saidctClobal I think it saidctClobal to help the transmission lines
reduce the losses on those lines is that adequate enough I guess I'm concerned about transmission restraints you know there's there's there's there's transmission restraints within the distribution lines but there's also transmission restraints on the larger grid so can you fill in the gaps there a little bit for me iss is the is it CtClobalt are they gonna offset any kind of restrictions
as far as the transmission side of this goes. I'm going to answer your
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
22:04
related to the transmission infrastructure that's going to be used to serve google's load at West Memphis there was additional infrastructure that was needed at that facility and as part of the special rate contract with entergy there is a provision that google will pay for those upgrades and additional infrastructure that's needed thectClobalartnership is a separate partnership that
is looking at reconductoring existing transmission lines and currently the way that that is structured was via an RfP process and so we put it out to all of the utilities and then we got responses from folks who are interested in partnering with Google. they submitted a response and detailed the project and the amount of investment that would be necessary I believe we have a team that is currently going through those responses now to select kind of the first round of winners
google is ambitious and we want to reconductor the entire United States we just have to take it you know one chunk at a time. so while we don't have any plans yet for Arkansas, I hope that this will be another way that we can work with entergy to bring benefits
to Arkansas ratepayers. thank you thank youpresentative senator Mcee you recognized you Mr
Senator Matt McKee
Unverified
23:26
Chairman and thank you Miss Wilson for being here
you know there's a lot of communities that are concerned with different aspects different things they've seen on social media could you would you be willing to go through what you consider to be some of the most important questions those communities can ask whether it is Google that's developing the data center or whoever it is can you go to some of some of the most important questions you think are important for y'all to answer for those communities that's a great question I'm very glad you asked and I
Speaker 7
23:55
think there has been a lack of understanding in
communities about what exactly those questions should be and how they can be asked to data center developers each of the developers approach things differently and so it is very important to have a forum where you can ask the questions and get answers that can enable you to make the best decision for your community I think we are seeing people who are very interested in energy use in water use sound appropriate buffers
around facilities impacts on lands and wetlands community benefits what will the community wind up paying for what benefits can they be expected to get in return? how will those benefits flow down to residents and in what form? These are I'm giving you kind of topic areas as opposed to you know very specific questions but I think those are kind of an umbrella of things that communities are interested in
Senator Matt McKee
Unverified
25:08
of these proposals and I appreciate that answer what are some of the
most important things states can do number one to ensure that you know the market's open for business and jobs and economic development but also to make sure that the people that
we represent are protected from nefarious actors and folks who don't necessarily exercise the best practice think that there are many
Speaker 7
25:34
entities that are interested in this and so to the extent that you can work in partnership that is going to be most helpful so as not to step on each other's toes or avoid you know one entity kind of getting in the way of the other and by that I mean you know entergy for example has worked out specific provisions that are enabling ratepayer protections when data center loads come to town and so communication I think around those principles
will be essential if the legislature were to take action at a state level say and there are states that have put in provisions around large load contracting what data centers must agree to I think there are some states who have weighed in on community benefits planning and what those benefits should look like it really comes down to the need I think in each state and every every state is going to be
different so your response is not necessarily going to look the same as Texas but you know you want to make sure you're following the principles of ratepayer protection land use protection and then making sure that communities are receiving the
Chair
Unverified
26:48
services that they need. go ahead if when you leave here today and I I think
Senator Matt McKee
Unverified
26:56
you're probably going straight to the airport. We appreciate you taking questions but if you had to leave hoping that we came away or the folks that are watching online came away with
one thing what's the most important thing that they should know about the industry that you're
Speaker 7
27:14
in and the development that we're seeing think in any any market where folks see that there is money to be made it invites a level of speculation and so you have a range of actors who are looking to develop data centers and it can be hard to differentiate the good actors from the bad actors. Google has demonstrated its commitment to doing data center development in the right way a
way that protects Arkansas ratepayers in a way that brings benefits to the communities in which we're
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
27:43
scited and so that is ultimately what I would like to leave you with today. thank you
chairman thank you p re s ent ative I mean Senator Mcee and and also Miss Wilson for
a good question and a great answer along that line I I just wanna say that can you clarify and most people in this room probably know it but generally I
don't think people do the initial developer may not be one of the names we've heard like like google or or amazon or someone like that this is what you're speaking of where someone goes in and wants to build a facility or or start a facility that will turn around and sell to you or one of your other the other data companies as my reading that correctly a coworker of mine calls
Speaker 7
28:34
that a man a van and a plan and so that is somewhat facetious but also
true in that there are folks out there who are looking to acquire land and yes construct a facility and ultimately sell it to someone but they don't
yet know who that someone will be so it's total speculation in that regard ok thank you next representative in it you recognized thank you
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
29:01
chairman. Hi, I'm Denise Sennett and the google that you're going to build on the port that's in my district and so I have a couple of questions about that can you
talk about the timeline again we haven't yet
developed a timeline. The timeline is going to be somewhat lengthy more than a year I can say for certain beyond that I don't know because those plans haven't yet taken shape. as I mentioned in my slides we're currently in our listening phase to figure out what the community would like to see in that
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
29:44
ask course go right ahead yes so in the sweet home community who have you spoken with
Speaker 7
29:51
in the community? so my job as an energy market development so I am primarily tasked
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
29:56
with our regulatory relationships and working on our our power acquisition with entergy we have a public affairs team we have a community development team and those are the folks who are typically on the ground speaking with community members and getting their viewpoints
one more so when you so how does that work after
you get everything start building are you going to start acBA or do you start a CBA before you start building the data center? how does that work? Typically it's before we start building we
Speaker 7
30:36
would at least enter into discussions with the relevant folks to determine what those community benefits are going to look like and then
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
30:46
it would absolutely be in place by the time the data center is constructed but you know depending on the the
Speaker 32
30:53
length of those discussions you know it could progress alongside the construction timeline
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
30:59
and I would just like to be kept apprised of that when you start doing
that thank you thank youpresentative Bennett uhpresentative macgruder who represents west memphis you recognize Mcgrew he saidmcgrew there
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
31:20
thank you Mr chair for allowing me to ask a question being that I'm not on this committee, I have three questions if that's OK Mr Chair just just shoot him yes sir thank you so much. my first question is well first the statement thank you for the $4 billion investment in Crittenon County being that I am a resident of Critan County. I do have a concern because you said there are areas that you all have started plants or gotten one going and then you had to shut down because it wasn't feasible
Speaker 52
31:53
No I'm sorry and I apologize if I misspoke that was a kind of a
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
31:58
rhetorical statement if we were to exit a particular market customers would still be protected based on the provisions that are in our contract Google has never left a data center community Our
Speaker 7
32:09
earliest data centers were constructed in 2007 and those data centers are still at the same level of capacity they were
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
32:15
when we constructed them and many of them have actually been expanded
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
32:24
my next question is again about Qritan County how many employees do we anticipate that will be from Krittenney County or live inrittenney County at this facility. I don't have that number off the top of
Speaker 7
32:37
my head but we like to hire locally and that is our preference so as many folks from Crittenon County who would like to work for Google, I think we're happy to take them thank you
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
32:49
so much and my last question Mr Chair Critan County I heard you
speak about the investment of5 million dollars a year over five years which is a total of $25 million in Critan County are we allowing anybody in Qritan County or they're just focused on one area in Qutney County. It is anyone
Speaker 67
33:11
in Crittenon County it is focused on low income residents and so groundu the
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
33:17
the partners that I mentioned Groundswell ICF and Crowley'sridge Development Council have been working together to create ways to spread the
word about the program and create intake forms. I think there's actually a website where people can enter their name, their address into into that site and be put on a list for a visit to talk about the potential for these health and safety repairs and weatherization services well if possible Miss Wilson can you share that
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
33:45
information with the committee so that we can make sure we pass it on to the residents of Crindon County. thank you so much to you
thank youpresentative McGruder uhpresentative Barnett you're recognized Thank you chair
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
34:10
Hi Miss Wilson thank you for coming and sharing with us of your presentation. I do have a question really one of clarification. I know that you spoke about the West memphisnergympactund which is approximately $25 million.
a few months ago there was an announcement regarding the greater west memphis Energy Affordability Fund which was another one.25 million so are those two separate things
and greater west memphis fund is part of that west
Speaker 7
34:48
memphis umgy impact fund and it is a carve out of that 1.25 million that is meant to be
allocated by members of the community and so we assembled an advisory board of local folks who are
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
35:06
taking applications for different energy projects and they're making a decision about how to allocate that $1.25 million within the community. OK and as it relates to the composition of
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
35:17
that board I know we had a previous email on May2nd where we talked about there being 80% of that board makeup from Crittenon County in west Memphis
and then there's 20% that
is from Memphis and Shelby County and could you provide explanation as to why that 20% is for Memphis and Shelby County. So there
Speaker 7
35:43
are organizations in Memphis are also invited to apply for funding and so because
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
35:48
those organizations could potentially ask to be grant recipients then we thought it wise to include representatives from Memphis as part of the board
Speaker 7
35:59
I have seen the applications
and I cannot recall if anyone from any organization in Memphis opted to apply at this time but
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
36:13
funding if people so chose has been given to
allow other counties in Arkansas to apply and primarily because you are developing in west memphis and west memphis school district is actually a dual county school district and so what Saint Francis County for
instance with someone communities from that county be able to apply for that particular fund. I think we
Speaker 7
36:41
view this this affordability fund as a starting point and we would love to be able to expand our footprint to include more counties with I mentioned an additional5 million dollars that had come as part of the Steeriver project announcement so because that project is located in Mississippi County a portion of that5 million dollars is going
to weatherization in that county and then as another component of that fund we also created a fund for Arkansas schools and so that is intended to serve the
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
37:14
rivercre s t school district but also the littlettleRock school district and the pulaski Countypecial school district so we are doing a slow expansion and I just ask for your patience and support as we roll that out. OK and 11 last quick question yes sir. So
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
37:38
I thank you for sharing earlier a clarification on as it relates to these weatherization grants and that they do include Crittin County residents outside of West Memphis because I was at a meeting where I asked that particular question of a city official and a primarily told me that it was going to benefit those that were in West Memphis. so one thing that I would like to know is it possible to get a percentage of those that have applied through the West memphis
Energympact Fund, what percentage of those applicants that will be awarded are from the city of West Memphis and or rural Crittenon County and I ask that because the data center development is pretty close to a rural unincorporated community and I know some of those residents have concerns they also would like to meet with Google so that they can get their answers to their questions answered directly and so I I just kind of
wanted to know if you could speak to
Speaker 7
38:42
that any Yes I'm happy to get you those numbers. What I will say in
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
38:47
advance of providing them is that the different organizations that we've partnered with are covering different parts of either Crittenon County or West Memphis.roundswell has been very quick to start providing services I'll say as I mentioned they've already done40 houses they have a 250 household waiting list at this point other partners who
serve areas outside West Memphis haven't been quite so quick to roll out their services and so again those numbers may look a little skewed at this point but we're expecting that
Speaker 7
39:20
as soon as the funds have been deployed to their fullest extent that will bring those other numbers
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
39:25
up to the same standard if you could get us that percentage breakdown I would appreciate
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
39:31
that please provide that to the committee M Wilson and we'll see a point of contact for that we'll see thatpresentative barnett gets it
as long and I'm sure it'll spark some
interest with others if you'll just share that information with the committee and I understand this is this is an ongoing fund this is not a snapshot this will be a a long term thing but if you could give us a a snapshot of maybe where we are this month and I'm sure that would please the people over in that area to know that yes definitely thank you Representative Barnett Representative Joey Carr you recognized thank you
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
40:08
Mr chairir just a quick question you said that it was a 20 year contract
with entergy yes what's the expected longevity on the on the center
in at the end of whatever its life is what what happens then I don't know
Speaker 7
40:25
because it's never we've never come to an end of life for a data center yet in addition to the twentyy year contract period if we don't say that we want to terminate that contract it will automatically renew for an additional term you know until Google says we're ready for this to end and we've not done that in a community yet
so I don't have any concrete examples to point to. I would expect that like anything that's decommissioned we would seek to do that in a responsible way that is responsive to
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
40:53
the needs of the community in which we're in. thank you thank you Mr chairir. thank you
sir p re s ent ative m c g re w you're recognized thank you miss
Representative Richard McGrew
Unverified
41:07
chairman and thank you for being here and sharing with us today on the with the demand of of power going up in Arkansas pretty
drastically now is there any ability I know that your load is pretty standard and stays on if if in the ability that some load needs to be shed because of a demand that hits is their ability within Google to shed some of that load and that is a part
Speaker 67
41:33
of those demand response provisions that we have with entergy that I mentioned at
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
41:38
west memphis so in the event of a grid stress period Google will agree if called upon to reduce our load for a certain number of hours
for a certain number of events per year. We are also looking at potentially in the future implementing distributed solutions so that could be additional energy efficiency. it could be a battery storage residential households and so there are a number of ways that one can either reduce demand or add capacity to alleviate that grid stress and we're looking at all of the options thank you thank you Representative Mcgreg
Chair
Unverified
42:18
Representative Torriess you recognize yes thank you Mr Chair. Just one quick clarifying question you
Representative Richard McGrew
Unverified
42:23
had mentioned infrastructure and who pays for it and I think you said generation and transmission is a part of that what about substations or distribution would lump that into the
Speaker 7
42:39
substation that was needed at west memphis google that was included in the payment that Google made for the transit
transmission component thank you so much youg thank you with with no well I think you did get back in the queue
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
43:01
Representative beck you're recognized and he's an engineer he didn't get pickup I am not but I wish
I was thank you and and please don't take these questions as a negative because I I do believe you know the data centers I I think we support them and I do I do support them but I am concerned about this
demand agreement and I'm really the the 100 hours a year you know we had winter storm Yuri that would have exceeded that time period and that would have been a you know and I'm just saying that would have been a time when we needed power and google's own contract would have said ok we we we did our four days and a few hours and we're back I I'm just concerned about the length of that other than that I
sounds like you guys are doing a dynamite job at making sure everything's all right but but we've just seen that here and we just don't want to and by the way I got the information googleling it I saw so thank you very much for coming and talking with us but I do have a
concern about that I think there are a number of ways to address reliability and in the in light
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
44:16
of winter storm Yuri the utilities are exploring all of those avenues so
adding capacity hardening the grid adding capacity at specific sites is helpfulman response not just from Google but from other large industrial customers is going to be essential and so in a an event of a winter stormuri you really need to call on all of those solutions to be able to ride through that event they are few but they can be catastrophic if we don't respond to them in the right way and
so I think entergy is like its other utility partners looking to explore all of those avenues connecting with its neighboring utilities to be able to share power when an event like that hits the grid to avoid some
Speaker 7
45:06
of those impacts that we've seen historically from those winter storm events thank you for answering that question
I I appreciate Representative Beck is he's one of our more technically oriented members and his former co-chair so you've got a lot of tools in the
toolbox he's got he's got all that M Wilson any final thoughts just that
Speaker 7
45:31
Senator Mcee was right and that I do have to head to the airport shortly after this but I'm happy to respond to additional questions if there are any and we've noted the questions that were asked today that require a response to the committee and I'm happy to provide those as quickly as I can. thank you you
were very informative witness and we may very well be taking you up on additional information would love to continue the conversation and thank you so
we'll move to item C2 west memphis we have mayyor McClendon was not able to be here today Mr Bobby Atkins who's a general manager of West Memphis Utilities and Mr Eric forrester who's superintendent of West Memphis School District if y'all both come to the table please and Erio get you all set up and the same same
routine just you will identify yourselves the record and
then I will recognize you one at a time Thank you Mr Chairman for
Speaker 169
46:49
the opportunity to be here please identify yourself for the record so my name's Eric Foister. I'm the superintendent of schools of West Memphis and Mr Atkins please do the same
Bob Atkins
Unverified
47:02
yes good afternoon my name is Bob atkins. I'm the general manager of West memphis
Utilities. thank you Now your first on the list Mroster
Eric Foister
Unverified
47:14
the kid business and my job is to ensure the education of our of our youth and as we know we're at the forefront of education with AI and so I have to figure out ways to not only educate students but educate our staff on what that looks like
and so when I first came to west memphis in December of 24 I had no idea Google was coming had no idea so I'm gonna talk about the kid business I'm gonna talk about the people business because that's what my business is so so I'm gonna tell a story so the day after the ribbon cutting and she she alluded there's different groups to google they came and she sat across from the table from me and she looks at me and she goes OK what's on your wish list? and I had no idea what I mean I mean how many people does that to you right as a superintendent
of schools so and so I didn't have really much time to think but I already kind of had a thought that I wanted a pathway for our students to go right into the workforce at west memphis we we have kids that's almost70% of our kids do not go to a two or four year college they go right in the workforce. so it's my job to educate on what they could do but it's also provide opportunities so I said I wanted a four year pathway that when they graduate from high school they could go work for you in the AI and cy ber se cur ity well that's come to fruition so this fall we have our first cohort of kids and it's it's life changing for our
kids the opportunity I'm not in the data centers I couldn't even tell you who else has got a data center so what I could tell you who I want to partner with to learn more about AI and that's Google and that's why I'm here and to to share the experiences that we've had and not only has it been life changing for some of our kids and with the profession I'm gonna show a quick video to to illust rate that but it is opened up doors in our community that I never thought would have been possible and I live inriney County have lived inritney County for five years. so
we now have communications with our college about hey what are some other companies are coming what what kind of pathways can we build? she showed the graphic about the jobs we need HVvac we need construction that's my job to now provide that it's opened up it's created the demand for us to really focus in on providing those opportunities for our kids and that's my job and that's that's what I'm passionate about I'm very proactive I I think outside the box and so does Goo g le and so the next thing that
we did we did a summer program you'll see here quickly to expose our kindergarten to fifth grade with robotics with coding and this is not my world so I grew up I remember I was still teaching when Google came out right and everybody was fearful of google then, let alone what it is now with the AI tools that we're all most of us in here use it we either knowingly use it or use it for a purpose so I wanna get ahead of that we want to be at the
forefront west memphis schools our community we want to be at the forefront of this and the only way I could do this is what the partnership of Google and quite frankly this has been a thought partner so I'd really like the opportunity Mr Chairman to show a quick video please please go ahead with it as you know we started
Speaker 169
50:25
a little late so I I want you to be able to get that in so go right ahead
Speaker 177
50:44
Technology is not decreasing in our lives it's it's increasing in our lives so how do we make sure that young people see themselves as leaders even in this space such that they can also happen to the technology instead of the technology happening to them we're at jackson Wonder Elementary School in West Memphis Arkansas this is a a creative innovative collaboration between a community organization like Coderu as well as a worldclas technology or company like
Google as well as an innovative school district it's been a great partnership
Speaker 178
51:19
it started with Google one of the first things that came to me literally after the ribbon cutting is what's your wish list you're my number
Speaker 180
51:26
one wish list was for an opportunity for our kids to have a pathway through high school when they get done with high school they go right into the workforce with skills that can maybe work for google so to be able to code in
Speaker 181
51:37
fifth grade it's actually I actually really like it and I loveonor because you get to learn about new things. I love to see the light bulb go off and
Speaker 177
51:46
each and every one of them as they realize that the things that they're learning in terms of being tech producers none of that is rocket science. I hope that we
Speaker 180
51:54
kind of set the standard for how to embrace this, how to embrace the AI world I want other kids to know that
Speaker 181
52:00
learning about new things is actually good for y'all for your brain so you can know about them when you get to higher grades. I want students to come back to talk
Speaker 184
52:09
to our current students and tell them look this opened up my life to do this. Ultimately it's them deciding that this is
Speaker 177
52:16
something that they can do then believing that there's something that they can do and they need the guidance and support of those who believe in them. that's just a snapshot if you I
Eric Foister
Unverified
52:38
invite anybody to come to our school district, I'll take you into a classroom or take you to a student that google is affected so either directly or
indirectly so I understand the let me phrase it I don't understand all the politics that's not my world I don't want it to be my world. My world is is education but I know in my world I have600 employees for over4,000 students it's important for me to make sure I have all the information before I make judgment and before I make decisions and I think in today's world we sometimes jump at information that we don't really get all of it and I think we've all experienced that as of late and I was also have a saying that Facebook is not real
to me other than an information tool anything else that's it I rely on face to face. I rely on relationships and and there's there's the google has done that they've they've proven they're not just a big brand they have proven that they're truly partners in this and I can I could sit here for hours on end but at this point I want to answer some questions that anybody might have OK. Mr Forrere
what you're doing and and being proactive especially with your students and their you know just a few
years ago these kids were born and now they're gonna be moving into a workforce that that you're helping prepare them for I hope you would be willing to maybe mentor some of your colleagues around the state that may be soon facing the same challenges that that you've been dealing with both in the good and the bad side so I hope that we can work out some manner in which you can mentor them and and tell them to what to watch out for and what things to take advantage of well I'm not sure mentor is the right
Eric Foister
Unverified
54:23
word but work with because I'm sure I can get some ideas from them more so than us but I can tell us I can be I would be willing to do that and already have I've already had some superintendents reach out to say hey this is coming down the pipe or possibly what can you tell me so I'm all about it we we're wide open in our city wide open in our schools and I I really encourage people to
come well thank you questions are from for tell you what I'm gonna go ahead and and get Mr Adkins to speak first and those of you if you
want to get in the queue that's fine but I'm gonna let him speak first and then we'll take questions that might go to either or both you're
Speaker 187
55:03
recognized Mr. Atdkins thank you Mr Chairman so I think I'm gonna start and I'm gonna talk about so
Speaker 189
55:08
in west Memphis we actually had the luxury that we started with another data center before the google data that really enabled us to learn a lot and as Miss Wilson said I can I can reiterate emphatically that not all data center
developers or hyperscalers are the same so from the very beginning Google their desire from from all interactions that we had with them at the city level before we ever signed any MOUs or CDAs their desire was how can they be an active part of the community right so they from the very beginning you'll you ' ll hear or you hear on social media you hear a lot of talk about that they move into disadvantaged or impoverished communities and west memphis
tends to fit that bill but from the very beginning they had nothing but a desire to improve our community and to invest in our community so we started like I said we started with another developer luckily that developer moved away and and the google facility came in and they started talking to us and we started working through some of the agreements from a from a municipal level first I'm actually the the general man of the utility but I've been involved in that process from the very beginning and I'll talk a little bit about utilities at the end but
as we were working through the process we were very concerned and very diligent about making sure that it was a a good deal for the city and that the city was going to get a benefit from having them locate there they were open to every one of those conversations when we started talking about community development agreements they were open to that conversation we were able to work through that they're making once they have occupancy they will make it sizable contribution to the city annually
and that is really transformational for us at a municipal government So as we work through all those things we had a memorandum of understanding I I will say this as a side note the one thing so we had an NDA with Google and for future reference if you ever have to pass anything like that at city council make sure that you get a bucky's MOu approved at the same time as the google MU because
Bob Atkins
Unverified
57:26
nobody asked us a single word about Google everybody cared about bucky's
Speaker 189
57:34
but it was it was a it was a good experience and they had a desire from the very beginning and they've maintained that desire through the whole process we started talking to them and april of 24 and they've maintained that position all along
Bob Atkins
Unverified
57:50
so they really there's two components that they operate within so there's a corporate level that we work with and then there's a project level that we work with the corporate level they focus mainly on benefits to community like the uhgyfoability fund that we
spoke about that Miss Wilson spoke about incidentally both superintendentfoister and myself are members of
Speaker 189
58:09
that council that advisory council one of the things that I will say that they did a good thing about with that is the the entities that they used groundswell the utility had West memphis utilities had been working with groundswell there and established organization and that's what they do and so they partner with them Crawley's ridge they manage the light heap funds and for us and so they
they already had a pipeline for these individuals and that enabled them to really kind of get in there and start working on that when we start talking about energy affordability and weatherization and winterization on these homes these are families that oftentimes have to make a decision between do I pay my utility bills so that we're not in the dark and we have heat or do I buy food this week and so this is really transformative for some of these families in these communities and like Miss Wilson said they've already done40 homes and they're slated
to do another almost 200 by the end of the year so it is making a real difference for the community we're also talking to them about at the corporate level about investing in other parts of the community so they're talking to us about public safety they're talking to us about public infrastructure they're talking to us about quality of life issues and they're willing to help and just like superintendent oyster said I would reiterate that their desires to be a community partner from the very beginning Google's approach it has been
that they're going to be in west memphis long term and they have approached every interaction that we've had with them that
Bob Atkins
Unverified
59:46
way from a municipal government We meet with them weekly and the weekly there's both the corporate and the project side on on the call and we're able to work through issues and we and we talk about things
Speaker 189
59:59
that are impacting the city and how they're how they're influencing the city as we as we to talk about the
project level so the project level those are the boots on the grounds folk and right now at the west memphis site there's about 800 contractors and associated folks working on the site they have different projects different initiatives and they're and a and their focus outside of the development is how can they impact the community so they've already gone in in the city did not ask them to do this this is their corporate culture and they go in and they do this so the city has they they've gone into some of
our municipal parks they're city owned parks and they've they've upgraded the parks so they've taken some of the playground equipment they're starting in the low income neighborhoods there and they're upgrading the playground equipment improving the fencing and cleaning the park up and they're doing all that on their own there's been instances where there's been roads and and streets that are close to the development the damage was not caused by them but they just went ahead and called and these are the project folks and said hey we have folks in here and and we'd like to be
able to help we'd like to come over and and and take care of this problem that you have so that's huge for us because that enables the city of limited resources to be able to use those resources in other places I'm
gonna interrupt you if I could Mr. Atdkins thank you for all that I'm we're as you know we started a little late I'm gonna try to move this along and you're making it very clear that at this point in time Google's been a pretty good corporate citizen for a new citizen in your community however I did have a question I
wanted to ask you about you as the utilities general manager are involved with the infrastructure although y'all are a municipal power
company but you're you will not be directly selling to the google that will be done by
entergy is that correct that's not correct tell me how that will work so
Speaker 190
1:02:01
as the chairman pointed out we are a municipal utility so we are actually an agency of the
Speaker 189
1:02:10
city and we are actually serving the water service and wastewater service to the site and we're also serving distribution voltage for about 25 megawatts of distribution to the site. that that is used for the construction temporary and then they'll be 20 megawatts of permanent power that will stay at the site that the city is providing to the site now now you heard M
Wilson mentioned that this was a I think she s
she used a different word but the air cooled site
but you will obviously they use water I mean it's a great big building it's gonna
so you you are the water provi your agcency is the water provider for the project OK. so is this
Speaker 189
1:02:52
for the first three buildings the first3 buildings will be air cooled there's gonna be a total of5. we don't know where buildings4 and5 were originalinally we talked to them about water cooled we had conducted studies to make sure that we had appropriate water out of the aquifer that we had the capacity to be able to serve them and so right now the usage that they have pardon me
think about it in terms of like a large distribution center so in west memphis we have the Bosch distribution center the water usage is roughly about the same and the sewer usage is about the same so it's very minimal water usage. the conversations that we did have with them were about using recycled water and that's still we're still having those conversations with them but there's no negative impact on the water usage for the community and we are providing that thank
you we have a question from
Representativeladyman who who is that forpresentative lady Well maybe both of
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:03:52
y'all then go go right ahead maybe both y'all can respond to this this is a really big project and
I know y'all been working on this a long time. you had a long history so you're as educated as any city in Arkansas I would think. so my question is big project talking to a big company so what was your biggest challenge to overcome to get
this project off the ground. what was the most
difficult hurdle this may be more for you Mr Atkins. probably the biggest thing was was making sure that
Speaker 187
1:04:29
when we look at things we want to make sure that there was no negative impact for our citizens
Speaker 189
1:04:35
from a utility standpoint that there was no negative impact on water or electric consumption. we just had an upgrade on our treatment plant and we wanted to make sure that
there was not a negative impact on the rest of the residents on that treatment impact and that there was no negative impact for any of our residents or ratepayers in terms of utility bills or taxes or anything like that in all actuality it it's it's actually having the opposite effect because we're spreading our fixed costs over our our larger customer base and so75% of our utility bills are fixed costs right? and so Google is is paying a large percentage of
those and so it actually has a stabilizing effect on our rates so those were all very important when we were started to work through this but then we also wanted to look at things like how is it going to impact public safety? We don't have a data center in west memphis how are our fire personnel gonna be incident there do they have the appropriate training when we brought those things up I I can tell you the google folks they were like we we will send you to any of our other data centers and we will help you to get the appropriate
you can do that so those were and then and then the infrastructure around the city we actually built a new road into the facility it had been in the plans for a long time and this was the catalyst to help us get that done so it's a bypass for our main Broadway thoroughfare that goes through town but bro it's
Speaker 190
1:06:08
those were all things that were really important to us as we were negotiating with them Mroster,
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:06:14
I might ask you you know the kids you showed that they're they're accepting that and they're learning but
what about the adults I mean the the teachers and the parents what was their attitude? I mean did you get any negative pushback from any l living next to it or whatever or were they all in on what it was gonna do for your school so full disclosure I I drive by the facility
Speaker 185
1:06:36
every day coming in to work and quite frankly I didn't know it was actually
Eric Foister
Unverified
1:06:40
comingti I actually got there so I didn't hear a whole lot of negative things at all and you know kids are kids you know if it's not a video gameme or right in front of on social media they they're
they're not they're not privy to all the things but as far as parents and community teachers, I mean this has been embraced as a whole in our community and in our school system as well thank you if I
Speaker 189
1:07:05
could just tack onto that we did a lot of work upfront talking about how it wasn't going to have any of those negative benefits we didn't name Google but we talked about the the positive benefits that a large development would have for our community and how there would not be any infrastructure issues or problems that we
Bob Atkins
Unverified
1:07:24
weren't going to use water up or use all the electric or make rates go up and so we did a lot of work up front
Speaker 189
1:07:31
to the community with the community through town halls and kind of grassroots messaging to kind of take to
Bob Atkins
Unverified
1:07:37
talk about all those things in advance of the announcement and we've realized a lot of success with that Thank you
before we go any further I just want to tell everybody that
I'm gonna be a little bit shorter with my time I'm gonna allow simply because we are gonna try to get
out of here before dark th30 and it is a little warm today so I know y'all can't wait to
get back out in the heat but uhpresentative Mcgruder you're recognized thank you chair just
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:08:09
have one question or a statement when you both agree that you have two of the best state representatives in the state of Arkansas. that that question's out of order
Eric Foister
Unverified
1:08:26
but I'll let y'all answer it. Was that a rhetorical question? so I I can I can honestly s share that I try to keep them in loop with everything we do and what's good for our community is good for schools and what's good for our schools is good for the community and and so we we I can't I mean jokingly I think you know just by him making that statement you know where we're at with our relationship and I respect them both communicate with them both they have been extremely helpful to me
personally as well as to the school whether it is a superintendent or a a utility manager I think everybody in this room on this side of the table agrees that it's great to have those communications a good relationship so thank you and and I will not rule your question out of order RepresentativemcGregor. I have one more
in the queue and that'spresentative Brooks you're recognized thank you Mr Chair. I appreciate the latitude since I'm not on this committee
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
1:09:22
but obviously given the last question there's a broad
latitude for to say things on this committee and I appreciate it thank you gentlemen for being here and and the information that you're providing and Mr. Ffoister this question is for you. relative to funding for the school district. Obviously we know that we're funded based on the uniform rate of taxation, property taxes. Has there been any discussions or projections made about how that would impact you. I saw a recent story about a a metadata center in a parish in Louisisiana that had significant positive impacts for
the teachers in terms of of annual bonuse s so have you had any projections made or discussed with Google about how this might impact the schools in in umriney County. so I'll answer in two parts so the first
Eric Foister
Unverified
1:10:10
part is obviously the revenue from the tax so we we still don't have exactly I'm still trying to plan that out as a superintendent. I'm trying to plan out 2,3,4 years ahead so I don't know what that tax revenue is going to be and as you know with school
finance just because our revenue comes up we may lose funding because of the equalization so we're trying to figure out where that balance is and what our increase is gonna be but there is going to be an increase so the second part we've had internal conversations with Google about other projects other things that we want to do to support our district we have some facility issues we're blessed with some resources but facility we have one of the oldest high schools in the state of Arkansas so we're looking at those type
things my first thing is is about our people because you can't you it's hard to find teachers and it's hard to find good teachers so and I'll make a plug we've got one of the first merit pay we have our own school district merit pay in west memphis schools which is about400,000 dollars we're gonna divvy up on teachers so it's significant. so that's important to me but I don't know how to plan that out yet until I have
Speaker 185
1:11:22
all the information and right now I don't have all that thank you and
I've give a little leeway to representative Brooks
while he is not a member of this committee he is chair of the houseducationittee and I knew he would have a relevant question for you so so thank you for that with no
further questions thank you both for coming and the hard work you're doing to serve your folks and rerichtenon County. thank you for the opportunity thank you as well Next we'll have presentation by andrey Mr John bethel, director of public affairs, Mr David Palmer
vice president of regulatory affairs if you too would come forward And and I also need to give the committee another heads up here I think this one might take a little longer than some of the others and I might cut if I do cut it off it would only be because I've recently learned that we will probably be scheduling a a another meeting in about four weeks and
Misterrethle you'll get to come back then so I I'm only saying that is that I'm I'm usually when we have a hearing like this we flesh everything out we're not going to go on and on and on with this today where we I promise you that we
we have some hard deadlines and we will we will get out of here but with that Mr bethel Mr Palmer I will ask you to introduce yourselves for the record and then you recognize good afternoon I'm
John bethel I'm director of public affairs for Enterg Arkansas.
turn your mic on show him how to do it John but
Speaker 223
1:13:17
David palmer vice president regulatory affairs entergy Arkansas thank you and good afternoon Mr chairman members of the committee we're pleased to be here and and to assist and we'll obviously show up anytime you you need our help we're glad to do that just want to hit on a couple of things before take questions but just we are pleased to help power Arkansas we're
pleased to help support the health and welfare of the communities that we serve and the and the customers we serve in those communities and part of that is ensuring that we are able to provide reliable and affordable power and serving large customers such as a steel mill or a manufacturing facility or a data center helps toward that because as as Mr Adkins mentioned a large customer pays a large part of the utility's fixed costs which helps cover costs that customers would
otherwise pay and with our data center customers we are contracting with them under our fair sharere plus pledge and Miss Wilson touched on that a little bit is is we contract with those customers to ensure that they pay the cost to serve them plus they pay additional amounts that help bring down the cost to our other customers and that has real benefits in terms of utility rates and so for our relationship with Google and our contract with Google it does provide over the life of
the contract that they pay for the cost to serve them plus additional costs that bring down the cost that other customers pay for example if it costs real simply if it costs us $100 to to to pay goog to serve Google or a large customer and they pay rates that produce 1 3 $0 that30 dollars increment is the plus that helps to offset costs that customcus other customers would otherwise pay and you've probably seen
information published in the newspaper about the Google contract specifically and it's it's not complete it's not and and there is more to the story than than what's been published but you can use that information alone to also demonstrate that Google is paying the cost to serve them plus the amount that it costs to serve them as reported was 1.6 billion the revenues from their contract is 2. $1 billion the half a billion
dollar difference is the plus that helps bring down costs to our other customers and and pay costs that our other customers would otherwise have to pay you've probably seen information about the generating Arkansas Jobs Act that you passed to help support growth in Arkansas and as a part of that there is a a charge on customers bills as we build facilities that are approved by the publicervice commission and the financing cost during construction are recovered through that charge on customers
bills and by doing that customers realize the benefit of a gradual change in rates rather than a large change in rates all at once and then on the back end by paying those financing costs during construction they don't pay those financing costs over the life of the asset which results in a long term savings to customers and our customers are seeing on the generating arkansas Jobs Act costs associated with financing the construction of the irronwood facility in Hot Spring County
the Jeffersonoweration in Jefferson County and the cypress solar facility that's also located in Jefferson County and those charges are on the customer's bills because those resources serve all of our customers and particularly the the cyprus solar facility will provide energy cost savings over the life of that fac il ity in the neighborhood of 245 to650 million dollars that our customers will see over the life of that facility and when
Google begins operating the revenues that they produce will more than offset the amounts that our customers are paying through the generating Arkansas Jobs Act that's a part again that's part of the plus associated with our fair share plus contracting with data center customers and so with that and in the interest of time David and I are available to to answer questions that you may have of us thank you Mr Prethel know
this is a shock to you but
I do have some questions I have been following the things going on that reported in the Democrat Gazette starting with the fact that you folks didn't seem particularly happy about the fact that there was a foia request made to the pSC and they received some inf some people received some information related to this and I'm I would be remiss if I didn't say I'm disappointed to seegy suing in federal court
over a first amendment issue but Juge Ruowsky seemed to at least for the time being kick that can down the road and I guess to the extent
you can comment on this and I don't badger witnesses to comment on something that's in litigation but this is unprecedented I've never seen anything quite like this where you know someone came in and and even my understanding and again correct me if I have this information wrong that's why I'm saying we're gonna come back inoctober and look at this a little more carefully but
did anrogy in their filing specifically ask the judge to have the Democrat Gazette remove the information that was published from their website I I'll try to take that and thank you for the question senator
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:19:02
Johnson let me go back and and reframe it a little because we didn't
Speaker 226
1:19:07
sue on behalf or have an issue with a foia request to a state agency that was not our
issue I I believe state agencies respond to those all the time when we were made aware of the information that was obtained through the foia it was clear to us that some of that information was was protected pursuant to a protective order at the APSC that was the basis of our request to federal court was to keep that information that is subject to that protective order from public disclosure and the judge disagreed on the basis of some First amendment arguments that I couldn't articulate but that was the only basis we
were seeking to protect confidential information that would not have otherwise been publicly disclosed but for the inadvertent release but it was released
Speaker 228
1:19:55
and did did y'all ask in your or and this is something that's in writing it's not
like you you whispered it or anything did you ask that Juge Rudowsky in his order tell the Democrat gazette to take it off their website where I mean it's already been published they even some people might may not know this but they actually do have paper versions you can go
buy if you want one I mean I get mine Monday through or Sunday Monday through Saturday electronically but there actually is a paper copy did did is that correct or did I misunderstand that I I would say we made two requests was
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:20:33
to the extent that could be redacted in some form even
Speaker 226
1:20:36
though public disclosure was largely to your point already made on that information yes we were asking for the judge's direction on how that could be accomplished but we're also aware that there was
additional information that was also released in that foyer that had not yet been made public and we were also focused on ensuring that that information did not subsequently get released it was twofold and the judge did deny at least and this this is
all temporary I know you haven't had a long drawn out trial about this but he did deny a request to order the newspaper to to redact that or to take it off their website that is that my understanding correct yes sir and senator the information was inadvertently
Speaker 223
1:21:22
released in response to the freedom of Information Act request. It was information that as Mr Palmer pointed out was covered by a protective order because it was customer specific commercially sensitive information that warranted protection from disclosure as determined by the publiclicervice commission and also we would take the same approach to any customer's information it is our obligation under law and it is our obligation to take care of information that we have that's customerc specific and not to have that be disclosed
that was the the issue it was not a matter of challenging whether a freedom of information actct request is appropriate or not it was a fact that information that shouldn't have been released in the response was released and it was trying to protect information that's customer specific just like we would do for any other customer that we serve well and appreciate
that and and being one of your customers I would want you to talk about my information although I did bring my last bill and I have a couple of questions of you
the and again as I said we're gonna come back to this in in inoctober but I have had pardon me for saying it this way I have had problem digesting this stuff I I'm the chairman of this committee I've served on it since I've been in the general assembly and this whole thing starting with generating Arkansas Jobs Act and subsequently is I've it boggles my mind sometimes to to figure this out to sound like it's like with Abbott and
Costello it's who's on first and who's on second and I've had constituents that they're are pretty intelligent and smart people they try to come up and they say that it looks like a shell game to them first thing I want to ask about is in the and I'm I'm gonna use this figure contested if you wish the577 dollars monthly fee for the three power generation projects you referred to I got my bill. this is my latest bill
and my if you if y'all haven't ever looked at your bill look on page two if you have an energy bill and it'll say current charges and then it'll sayy charges and after at the bottom it says the generating Arkansas Jobs Act well mine wasn't you know, uh5 dollars77 cents it was $22.81 now I know that it's been hot and I know that maybe I have a bigger house but still that's a whole lot more money and I don't know where you came up with the577 I assume that's some kind
of an average or a median because there's obviously there may be somebody out there paying less than5 dollars77 cents can you spread some light on this sheriff
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:24:12
senator let me try as you noted usage is up right now because of
Speaker 226
1:24:17
the heat right residential customers pay a volumetric rate meaning you pay per usage. You heard Miss Wilson describe how some customers pay a demand charge you're only paying a rate that's expressed in terms ofcents per
kilowatt hour so if you're using a lot you're going to pay more we have for I'll say decades utility has quoted our rates on an impact of 1000 kilowatt hours of usage. so the5 dollars77 cents is quoted as on 1000 kilowatt hours so if yours is four times that amount then you've got4 times more usage than the way we quote our standard rate mine says3,974 kilowatt hours
during that billing period and it says the rate is the difference000574 which is about ive well a little over half a penny per kwh that's
that's how I'm looking at but again we're gonna we're gonna I'm not gonna drag this thing out but we're gonna look at this once I actually have a chance to read all this stuff hear from the pSC and and and and come back on this and I guess I will finalize what I'm doing and and
we've got people in the queue how much of that of my $22.81 is paying
for Google or any other data center or shall we say large customer because that's certainly a an issue that has been debated
both directions and you're talking about how they're paying for it but you know when this bill came up and you remember I
called it a cost shift I said you're you know the old days before you had the writer your company would go to the capital markets whether it's issuing bonds or or you go to New York banks or or get your stockholder equity to pay for but you know the facility that generates power you guys
paid for and now we the ratepayers you know and some of us may not live long enough to see these plants finished are paying for it right now now some of the
justification is well we don't want to hit everybody with a great big bill all at once well for 100 years we've been doing it this way why is it suddenly not gonna work to use the traditional model where if you're a private company a regulated utility you get a guaranteed rate of return determined by the pSC and but you you know you pay your own upfront cost if if Sam Walton wanted to move to my come to my hometown of Conway which he did a long time ago and
built a Walmart store he didn't ask the customers to start paying up front before they bought the first you know shirt or pair of socks in that Walmart and and this but this is what we're doing now and it's it's a cost shift that I'm I'm I'm not sure it completely parallels this issue with data centers although obviously they are a big industry a big user of power and you guys are dealing with them and thank you for doing that because I support the data centers both for our
competitive factors with our adversaries around the world and the fact that you know I've got one of these things and I want it to work but I'm I just want to know is is you know suddenly I've got another extra $22.81 and how
does this all tie together under the legislation
Speaker 223
1:27:56
and under the charts that's on your bill you're paying costs that you would otherwise pay under the traditional method under the new method that was approved under the generating Arkansas Jobs Act you're paying the financing costs associated with
construction during construction under the traditional historic method that was in place before that we would spend the dollars accumulate those costs add that to what the cost of the plant was that we put into service and customers would pay those ex act same costs plus interest over the life of the asset which cost more than paying those costs on the front end during construction and not paying them on the back end as I talked about earlier it's a it's the same cost but it's a timing difference it saves money in
financing costs that customers pay and it saves money and what actually comes out of their pocket over the time that the assets in service serving them and the assets that are included the three power plants currently are going to serve all
of our customers well I guess I'm trying to differentiate how much of this comes from in this case we're talking about Google is one
but we know there are others and how much is just the the usual growth because we're
again I I've talked long enough I'm gonna move on and let some other people ask questions and first up ispresentative meeks whoop thank
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:29:20
you Mr Chairman. well we're far right. so I just had a follow up question on the solar facility that's being built to help support this project. is there going to be any battery
storage added to that solar project because I know one of the concerns that have been mentioned before is the demand response what happens if we get into an emergency situation obviously having that backup
energy available would go a long way towards helping to relieve that issue so just curious if that was part of the the the plan
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:29:51
here. yes re it is it's a600 megawatt solar facility and a350 megawatt battery energy storage system be part of it ok right thank you senator
Mcee you're recognized thank you Mr Chairman. thanks for
Senator Matt McKee
Unverified
1:30:06
being here appreciate you so my my concerns
surrounding the the use of the rider for this project whether it's
cypress solar is is maybe you can help me understand why entergy decided to take the contributions made by Google and apply them as other contributions instead of kayak payments and help help me understand the process of why that why
that benefits ratepayers because unfortunately I don't think that's how most ratepayers look at that right and thank you and it's it is a little
Speaker 226
1:30:36
hard to explain also so if I could maybe take it in pieces so if you if you step back and think about the timeline that Miss Wilson
explained you know they're they're actively pursuing construction of their facility with an expected in service date sometime next year with some level of needing to add their load in increments as they ramp up their data product whatever it is their ramp we're faced with needing to get the facility under construction and completed because we need it to sync up with the load coming online. we also are pursuing advantages through the tax code so we get tax credits for that facility that there are
requirements that have shifted even before even as we were negotiating with Google so from a timing standpoint we're faced with what we've got to get the construction started. We need the financial support to for the construction of the project there's also this build out that Google's gonna have to do before they're actually spinning that meter and paying those rates so so the the rider became the mechanism for cost recovery which included what Mr. Bethel just described which was to go ahead and begin recovering some of the
financing cost support for that resource which again all of the energy cost savings go to all customers as well so there's a bit of a you you're paying for all the costs but you're also getting all the benefits what we further did was design Google's rates where they would cover the full cost of their service so there may be a line item on the bill that says here's a cost that they caused but their rates are designed to more than cover that cost it's just individually called out on
the bill through the writer and will that
Senator Matt McKee
Unverified
1:32:23
be demons tra ted over how many years? I mean I I saw the report in for the godger rider that you filed last month I believe with PSC so is that over is that over ive years that that happens or what what does that look like we we we filed
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:32:37
the rotter in early March. the rates went into effect in June and we provide a five year forecast to what those rates look like but we're talking over the life of Google's entire contract and back to your your other question
relative to the kayak treatment or the non kayak treatment there were advantages both to the
Speaker 226
1:32:55
company and the customer for how we approach that single question so if you're if I don't want to speak on behalf of Google but if you are if you you know there may be accounting or tax reasons why you wouldn't want a payment to a utility to be a capital payment towards an asset from our point of view the benefits come back either way because you're still going offset the total cost of that
resource by that amount it's just whether you do it all at once or over time what we provided in our filing with the commission was what we fully expect we're we see that the rates because
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:33:34
they are higher than the cost to serve or already putting downward pressure on rates so that opened the door for alternative
Speaker 226
1:33:41
treatment to further spread those benefits benefits out over a longer period of time ultimately getting to the same place but you get same benefits
for all customers but instead of being all at once you get some rate smoothing but also now you have long term benefits
Senator Matt McKee
Unverified
1:33:59
because when you when you take whether it's5 or600 million dollar contribution from Google you know I think what a lot of people expected was you don't have to request 1.6 billion you know in rates through the rider you you know you just you ask for one and so that's that's the short term thinking right but I think that that explains why well we we take a step back so what we
Speaker 226
1:34:22
would say is in this example instead of 1.6 it would be 2 billion so we're not putting 2 billion in rates we're putting
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:34:32
1.6 in rates the question is are we collecting that rate through the roder or through some other mechanism either way Google's revenues come into the equation
Senator Matt McKee
Unverified
1:34:43
and they offset all of our cost and last question cyprus that helps fulfill obligations that arose out of the consent decreeright that called on the
cessation of burning coal at independence and Whitebluff is that help fulfill those obligations ' m recalling the don't
Speaker 223
1:35:09
resources necessary to replace the the generation that we are from ceasing to burn coal but it's not the it's not the entire amount but it's part of our our resource mix going forward and as you and I have talked
about we have an adequate amount of dispatchable generation that's available all the time and then the renewable resources that we have provide fuel cost savings that will help all of our customers as well thank you gentlemen thank you Thank you Senator Mcee
because you you kinda phrased the question I had a little more succinctly and I appreciate the answer on that Senator hickey you recognized
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:35:55
thank you Mr chairir. Mr bethel of course we know whenever the seawhip bill was done that yourself and some others and probably about five or six of us sat in my office for hours upon hours and what I remember from every legislator that was in there or basically every legislator in there that the number one thing that we were gonna worry about was ratepayers we understood that you all had shareholders although you're a monopoly you're also a publicly traded company. and that was stated over and over and over again and if I
remember correctly we had a six ppage amendment that went on to this and the original one didn't even have the psC in there and of course you know we've got through all this and I've heard what some people say, you know, you know, I don't particularly like this like this spill but you all sit down there and you sit there and you say well it's better that we're doing it this way because it you know it's getting spread out and the rates are less but in my mind I want to see that proved up
and maybe through the psC and Mr. Webb you know, I want to know that you all agree with that and publicly out there because from my standpoint I want to know that if you did do the financing less so in other words if it wasn't put on the bill if you took that money and just went straight to it so that that's construction work in progress was not put on that rider that it would not be not be more beneficial, you know, to our ratepayers which are our
shareholders. I don't blame you for what you do for your shareholders and Mr. Palmer, I don't really know you but read what you said in the paper also listened to what you said in here you know you said that you know it does help cover all of our costs. Well I assume all of your costs are also part of your dividends that you're paying to your shareholders so you know from my standpoint yes I can see where the way that you're doing it does cover your costs which I assume wouldn't you agree that a
dividend's part of your cost but that's for a benefit of your shareholder which if we just applied it directly to the C whip program and we didn't put this on the ratepayer's bill y'all's earning per share may be less but at least it wouldn't be on our ratepayers's bills I don't know you know I can sit out here and listen to all this but I don't know how we justify that I I was hoping that since we put this back through the PSC that this type of stuff would be
covered but at this point right here, I think that there's enough people out here that need to see that need to try to understand it so that we can relay that back to our shareholders the ratepayers So I don't know if you want to comment to that or where we go with that. I've just I personally do not like
Speaker 223
1:38:50
what I'm seeing well senator, I appreciate that and all of the costs that are included in the yder were authorized by the Public Service commission and they're subject to public service commission review throughout and they are costs that would be recovered one way
or another the the traditional method that's been used in the past is to accumulate those costs during construction adddd them to the cost of the facility recover them over the life'm well I'm well aware of that little
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:39:12
spin that we put on it you know with the financing cost and this and that and that that only works I guess as as long as everything's on the on the up and up it's just you know I have to look at it from another standpoint that although5 dollars a month is not going to draw any interest for anybody the cumulative effect over the whole the whole ratepayer you know the lost
interest that they're going to be receiving during the time that you normally would build and was paying your own interest and those costs you know we had to calculate those in and net those out. So you know, I can look at it a different way like that but I just it just seems odd to me it just it just seems odd to me that with as much talk that was done whenever we were trying to prepare this amendment and it's a complicated bill. I mean, I'll be the first to say and it's even hard for me to understand being involved with it some
but it's hard for me to understand whenever you look at this thing that from y'all's standpoint and you and this is your responsibility that your responsibilities to your shareholders why that you wouldn't have reduced the cost of the sea whip instead of doing it the way that you've done it and I just think that that needs to be proved up and once it is proved up I would like an explanation from the PSC and maybe some other attorneys and
things like that that this is the most most effective way to do it for the ratepayer in this case so Mr chairir that may be more of a statement but like I say, I just would agree
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:40:49
I don't I don't know and I don't think any of us know
Senator hickey you have brought forth something that is the reason why I see us coming back next month and looking at this maybe with a little bit better magnifying glass a lot of this information that we're talking about today is stuff
we've just learned whether the the articles in the newspaper were correct or not we don't know but they've been thrown out there and it's data that we have to deal with so I appreciate your comment I I agree with your comment and I want to I want give Mr bethel and Mr Palmer a chance to respond but I can also take gentlemen if y'all want to wait about a month we'll we'll we'll be back and maybe have our questions a little more concise
but certainly feel free to to respond to whatsenator hickey said yeah we're certainly happy to come back.
Speaker 226
1:41:45
I would say and I don't want to take the wind out of Chairman Webb's sales but they did the when we got the rodder through the regulatory process at the APSC they did establish some reporting requirements around some of the very questions you're asking so that we can expand upon that with when I have it in front of me but the cost comparison the jobs and all the things that the law addresses the commission was
very intently focused on when we brought that rider before him so there is some reporting obligations that we have that feed into their their reporting obligations as well but I don't want to speak on their behalf you'll be recognized you
you can go to the top of the list senator hickey at that time OK thank you p re s ent ative innnnett
and I'm gonna encourage you to be concise and quick yes sir thank you Mr Chairman. I have
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:42:42
a question Mr bethel how much additional generating capacity will be needed for the google and LittleRock in the bio data centers Yeah if I could take that so
Speaker 226
1:42:57
beyond cypress solar that we've discussed we don't have any additional plans because of those two customers. and we residential customers be paying to finance the construction
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:43:14
force of cypress solar no for the yeah for cy yes yes thank you that was part of our discussion of
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:43:21
what's currently in the rotter. So Cyprus solars financing costs are currently
Speaker 226
1:43:24
on bills in that rider one more question but you better be quick I have to cut you off how
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:43:35
was still River solar in Mississippi County be used? Steelleriver is an independent project that Google pursued on
Speaker 226
1:43:44
their own so we don't currently have any interaction with that facility. They they negotiated that on their own behalf and they they dealt
with the counterparty. thank you thank youpresentative Bennett senator penzo and I'm not putting you seriously under the gun but please be
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:44:03
mindful of our time I'll make it snappy thank you Mr Chair. how what's the expected energy consumption of the google Dataenter.
Speaker 226
1:44:16
I don't believe Google has said publicly exactly what their total demand is. we'd be I'd be careful I wouldn't want to disclose it on their behalf.
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:44:25
OK, so we don't know if the 600 megawatts over or under what we need is that accurate? it's not public I would
Speaker 226
1:44:35
say we have demonstrated we have adequate generation with the addition of their load when we put cypress solar into our what we call production cost bottles which is how we model the entire
bulk electric system with our load decide what resources we may or may not need when we put our generation fleet in the model with their load and cypress solar we see resource adequacy and we see our costs we see cost savings because our variable supply comes down those are the cost those are the energy benefits that we quoted or Mr bethel
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:45:12
on that so is the did did I catch you saying that
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:45:18
the the whole project's a $2 billion project I think you're referring to Mr. Bethel's
Speaker 226
1:45:30
intro. well I mean oh well my on cyprus solar on cypress solar only is that rough math we've got the cost estimate is 1.6 billion but that is exclus excluding the financing costs we would otherwise put into that and recover over the 30
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:45:44
year useful life OK and the full 1.6 billion cost is
part of that577 a month that goes to the ratepayer that full 1.6
Speaker 226
1:45:56
billion? No right now and don't quote me on the math we've got that five year forecast that Senator Mcee discussed for the rider. so we're in year one of the construction activity so of the5 dollars77 cents per 1000 kilowatt hours that we quoted there's about 1 dollar76 cent that would be attributed to cypress solar that reflects the year one financing cost or the support
for the financing costs for the year one capital outlay the full 1.6 wouldn't be in rates until it goes completely into service in a couple of years I can't remember the exact date and what's that change to 1.76 what will that change to in the
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:46:34
operational year? I I would be speculating if I tried to do that math right now that's good for now
Speaker 286
1:46:47
financing cost is all that's recovered during the construction period and then the the total investment is
recovered over the life of the asset and spread out over the life of the asset it's not all recovered at once.
OK thank you Senator Penzo uhpresentativehudson you're recognized thank you senator and I appreciate
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:47:09
you letting me ask a quick question and this kind of taps on to what Senator penzo was asking y'all about I was looking through an old article from the demgaz from March while everyone was talking and this was one of the first references
to the5 dollars77 cents rider in that article it was reported that entergy estimated residential customers would see a monthly increase of7 dollars 9 cents in the first year and by year5 customers could be paying up to $21.85 a month which would be4x what people are paying right now if you use the5 dollars77 cents and then if you look at what senator Johnson was paying which is already $20 something dollars, can he expect that his is going to go up
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:47:49
to $80 in the next five years?
Speaker 226
1:47:58
no. thank you for the question. I believe the March article was referencing when we don't quote me on the math but we had proposed a different cost allocation that ultimately got approved by the commission and so there may have been some reporting on what we had said previously we the the legislation laid out a process where we had to go to the commission to get the roder established and then we provided our first update to that rider
this year so when we went in last year to get the roder established we do the utility ratema here's how the costs come in here's what we'd go to residential if we do this approach versus that approach when our filing had a cost allocation among residential commercial industrial customers that was that original math and then what the commission approved had a different allocation so when we quoted the approved the residential number
went to the5 dollars77 cents so so ratepayers don't have to worry then
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:49:11
that this this5 dollars77 cents or whatever they're paying right now is going to go up by4 or5 times in the next five years is that is that accurate we file a schedule that shows exactly
Speaker 226
1:49:23
what it's going to go up by based on the capital outlays we see for those resources so it
will increase because we're building those facilities but when they're built it stops to beth Mister bethel's point at the fully cost at the full cost of that plant and then that's it and then that cost is depreciated over the life of the asset so all we're what we're talking about is instead of the rate going up to the full amount and then depreciate it down we're able to get some level of support now in that reduces the overall amount that then depreciates
over time but we we provide that forecast in our rate filing. thank
you Representative Hudson senator Irvin you're recognized. Does that rate forecast ever get changed
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:50:11
the rate forecast in the roder I think it would move
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:50:19
if I were because when we say the financing cost we're basing that on how much capital we have to
Speaker 226
1:50:24
spend so just to make up a number if we have to spend
50 $0 million next year to support building those three assets we're going to recover the financing cost for the500 million if that500 swings because of how we've contracted with this construction company or that because we're using cost estimates for building these resources that would move it but otherwise it would largely follow exactly what we filed and at any time that you make any kind of
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:50:55
an adjustment to that rate schedule or increase that goes before the PSC at any time or is it just
at a certain time of the year can you do that without going no it's a it's
Speaker 226
1:51:09
a we update it annually just like our other mechanisms so we'll file early March for rates for June every year. and the the law provides for an annual
Speaker 286
1:51:19
filing so it it's a once a year revisit of of the and setting of the you can only adjust it once a year you
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:51:27
can't adjust it any other time. it's only once a year yes ma'am and then like you said based on
whatever you spend, whatever you presented to begin with as far as an estimate to representative Hudson's question the math is going to be different or is it going to be the same that you presented or it could change. It should largely be what was
Speaker 226
1:51:50
presented. I'm just noting that those numbers may shift a little because we are building3 large resources so over a three or four year construction window things might move a little but it should largely track what was filed thank you senator
Mr Bethham Mr palmer thank you for coming we're as a Iu I warned you I guess I should say we're gonna have to come back and talk about
this some more and committee members I'm I spoke with my vice chair senator Mcee and we're we're trying to work out of things so we're not here for another 23 hours and so we're looking at since we really this
was not just about data centers is also about rates and the rider and the charges I'm gonna try to try to
bifurcate this this subject we're going to hear from items6 and7 which is central Arkansas water and littlettleRock waterterreclamation Authority and then we will set a new agenda for our next meeting that would include of coursegy but also electric cooperatives and the PSC and I want to apologize to Mr Hasten and Chairman Webb and Mshofer for this postponement I know do it's not the first time you've had to sit through a
hearing and he didn't get to your bill or whatever but I also wanna say to Chairman Webb our prayers are with Justice Webb for her speedy recovery and having her back on the court but just please extend all of our prayers to her that will be do and so if you would thank you folks for being here and if I would ask and Mr Bohannon M Block and Mr. Benfield could come on up. I think we can do this panel pretty quickly and
we'll take everything else up at our next meeting is there a motion for that senator Mcee? is this second by senator the motion is that we'll change the agenda and
finish this next month yes ma'am en er ban yeah thank you but I do I do think that
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:54:07
we want to respect Senator hickey had a question for PSC and I don't know if senator hickey wants to
next month I just wanted to make sure thank you senator
Irvin and certainly we'll make sure we're right and then second all in favor say aye oppose ok thank you will and thank the three of y'all for waiting and we probably
should have moved y'all up right after West memphis but that's ok we we we got you in today I don't wanna make you come back if you would each introduce yourselves for the record I would appreciate it yes sir I'm Jeanlock CEO of
Jean Block
Unverified
1:54:45
LittleRock Water Reclamation Authority. Rryan bennefield the chief operating officer for with
Speaker 306
1:54:49
LittleRock Water Reclamation Authority. my name is Tad Bohanon I'm the CEO of
Speaker 310
1:55:05
Central Arkansas Water. OK thank you and since you're first on the list
MrRohannon I'm gonna let you go first well thank you all thank you chair senator Johnson thank you
Speaker 310
1:55:16
all for the invitation to be here we have had a long afternoon so I'll try to keep this as as short as possible central Arkansas water is a potential provider of water to two data centers in central Arkansas one being the Aveoenter on pulaski County and the other being the Google Center at the LittleRock
Speaker 311
1:55:38
Port Authority. I say a potential water provider because as of this point there has been no application filed to receive
water from central to receive water from us at either data center and no plans for the development have been filed so it's it is a potential now I'm not trying to dismiss that but we also do not know the final details of what they are planning to do on those sites as far as water consumption. so until that occurs we can talk
about the generalities that you have heard in the press in another conversations and our approach to it and I think the important thing to realize there is that central Arkansas water does not look at this economic development project any differently than it looks at any other economic development project and we are agno s tic as to what those projects are it is not our job as a water
utility to say yes we like this project and no we don't like this project if a community is gonna have a project then we have to look at it and say can we provide water and if we're gonna provide water what are the terms and conditions of providing that water in this instance and how we are with all economic development opportunities if there are capital improvements that are required to be made to the
system the developer of the project is required to make those capital improvements it doesn't matter if it's a Walmart store going on to an area that has not had service a data center on amazon warehouse or a residential subdivision a developer comes in with a re subdivision and says we want to build 200 homes and we say here is the water infrastructure that you must construct and pay for
amazon warehouse came in and said we want to build a warehouse we said here is the infrastructure you are required to pay for and so it's the same analysis the only analysis that may somewhat be different is the size of the numbers that people have talked about in potential water consumption so let's look at that a little bit in that central Arkansas water
yesterday delivered 11 million gallons of water to the half million consumers that we serve on a maximum day that we have heard any data center throw around it's about4 million gallons so we're talking about a4% shift when we have the ability to treat 157 million gallons of water and we already have73
million gallons of water sitting in tanks so our total water available based on our tanks were filled up the night before and we have treatment capacity during the day of the 157 is 225 million gallons of water that could be delivered and the data center may need4 on a maximum day that is not what they're gonna need every day
it's what they would need on a maximum day and then you even heard them talk today it depends on what type of cooling system they use we don't know that yet that hasn't been submitted to us to look at now I do want to state before I be quiet because I said it'd be brief as I've told you central Arkansas water numbers and I wanna be candid in that I can't speak for every water utility in the state and I know
that hope is looking at one and Clarksville is looking at one and they're already building one in west memphis and I gave you our numbers hopepe's maximum water capacity is 9.6 million gallons a day if they're looking at a data center I have no idea what that impact is on their ability to provide water so when you get down to it and you're just talking about what can CAW deliver it's a different conversation
maybe then what could be occurring in other parts of the state and you already heard West memphis earlier say they shifted to air cooled because of water demand and now they're looking at well maybe in the future we'll have additional water supply so this very much becomes a community by community analysis of what resources are available and is there s uff ic i ent water available to serve the potential demand.
and with that I'll be quiet and they can either answer me questions
or we can go over Mr Bohannon and I have to say one of my favorite answers that witnesses gave said well it depends and that's in effect what you said and I appreciate the fact I do have one very brief question I was at this moment you don't anticipate having to choose between a data center or any other economic development project and those consumers like me that just want
our water to come on when I turn
Speaker 315
2:01:38
the faucet not only do we not anticipate having to make that choice on any given day as to who we're providing water with but we've we continue to make the commitment when the next project comes along we'll figure out a way to make sure that we have the water to be able to deliver
Speaker 312
2:01:57
it Arkansas is a water rich state water should never be the reason we deny economic development opportunities in the state.
thank you sir and Mlock and Mr Bennefield I recognize y'all together and let you divide up however y'all want to present this thank you and
Speaker 319
2:02:16
good afternoon Chairman Mcairld on if I can hold just a moment
Representativeladyyman was your question specifically for Mr. Bohannon if you'll let me holdpresentativeladyman does have a question for Mr Bohan thank you Mr Chairman and I'll be brief. Mr.
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
2:02:32
Bohannon, thanks for your information you gave the capacity you got and
percentage and so forth but what I what I think I heard you say is that we should treat data centers just like any other project look at what the parameters are look at what we have so it should be just another business or commercial or whatever that it just produces data instead of widgets is that true as as a water utility I
Speaker 312
2:03:04
believe that is what how we should treat
them we are not in the business as a water utility of picking winners and losers that's who gets to come to a community and operate thank you thank you
thank you. I'm sorry to that we jumped around
Jean Block
Unverified
2:03:29
like that Misslott but you go right ahead you good after good afternoon Chairman Mcair Johnson and committee members thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's discussion. My name is Jeanlock and I am the CEO of
LittleRock Water Reclamation Authority. our utility is the largest sewer utility in the state of Arkansas. We collect and treat used water from LittleRock and the nearby municipalities ofcammack village, Alexandria and College Station serving a population of over 200,000 people we have three water reclamation facilities and we returned36 million gallons of treated wastewater to the Arkansas River every day Joining me is our COO Ryan
Benefield. Ryan has played a key role in evaluating the technical impacts of the proposed Google Dataenter project in the port of LittleRock to our sewer system. as conversations about data centers continue in Arkansas we welcome the chance to explain our utility's role and share what we know as a wastewater utility. it's important to note that every sewer utility is unique. Each system differs in its treatment processes and infrastructure capabilities and today my remarks will focus
on google's proposed data center in the port of LittleRock and how it impacts our utility, our customers and the infrastructure we manage. We have not been involved with any other data center projects outside our service area including the avail or the proposed avo facility in Wrightsville. Our customer base includes residential neighborhoods hospitals small businesses and industries of varying sizes for decades we have communicated
early and often with industries who are considering operations in LittleRock to ensure that they understand our requirements and capabilities when an industry approaches us about serving them we must first answer some key questions. can we safely treat their wastewater while preserving our biological treatment process. do we have enough capacity at our treatment plant? Will it impact our current customers and can we support future growth the answers to these questions
and others inform whether we can serve the industry and continue to maintain our mission of protecting public health and the environment before making any decisions about the google Dataenter we considered these questions and to answer them we commissioned an independent third partyty study in 2024 which evaluated the wastewater, the data center would generate. I will note that Google covered all the costs of the study while LrWrA retained independent control of every
aspect of it In2025 we received the results of the study which showed that our Fish Creek treatment plant can handle the data center wastewater without impacting our biological treatment process our plant operations existing customers or our environmental compliance regarding available treatment capacity our Fish Creek facility currently has about 8 million gallons per day of available capacity. Our analysis shows that we can handle the
wastewater from the proposed data center continue to serve our current customers and still have plenty of room for future growth in the port. Cost is another important issue we understand that people worry that a project like this might impact utility rates for LrWRA the answer is no in the same way we required Google to pay for the initial study, we would require them or any industry to pay all costs associated with transporting and treating their wastewater including any special
infrastructure needed for their project LrWRA customers will not pay these costs and the project will not increase sewer rates for cus residents or businesses. we know data centers have sparked a significant amount of public interest and there are still questions about infrastructure environmental impacts and long term growth. these are important topics and people deserve clear and honest answers. We are committed to sharing accurate information about the parts of the project that fall within our
responsibility and expertise. at our utility our mission does not change from project to project we work to protect public health protect the environment, provide safe reliable wastewater service maintain reasonable rates and responsibly manage the public resources entrusted to us thank you for letting us share our perspective today. I am pleased to be part of the discussion and Ryan and I are happy to answer any questions you have. thank you Misslock. I do not
have any questions in the queue but if anybody oh I'm sorry y'all jumped in fast senator Mcee you're recognized thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you all for
Senator Matt McKee
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2:08:27
being here today. I appreciate your patience and letting us get around to you and coming to talk to us about the the experiences that you've had so what what I hear you saying is that when a developer comes to you the details of their operation are extremely important. that's if they're not forthcoming with those details you probably aren't going to do business
and if you don't have the resources to support that industry you they're probably gonna need to find another location would you agree with those things? Yes sir as it
Speaker 325
2:08:58
relates to littlettleRock waterter Reclamation Authority very good thank
Speaker 90
2:09:01
you for coming today thank you senator Representative ladyman, I
think you're going to have the last word. Thank you Mr Chairman
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
2:09:10
and thank you all for being here and I I liked your presentation very much. so what what you said was you look at the what you're
concerned about is the biological or chemical load that is in that water that you're gonna have to provide you're gonna have to treat in the process I suppose would be what's the data center or whatever it is this customer would have to come to you and ask for a permit and you would ask them questions about why does your ph load, what is your biological load, what's your metal load? doesn't matter who that customer is. everybody follows the same process and you know what your capacity is what you're capable you're how much
volume you can change ph you know how much that is and you look at that just as Mr Bohan talked about you know what your capacity is and if you can serve that customer then it benefits the community you're all in if you can't you tell them you can't yes sir that's correct right thank you very much thank you
Representativeladyman and and Senator Penzo did slip in there at the end so
you don't get the last word he does senator penzo and then I'll come back to you senator hickey thank you Mr Chair. and actually have a
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
2:10:24
question for Mr. Bohannon. and I'm sorry it didn't really pertain to data centers but was was it your water district that was running out of fluoride? Did I see an article is ok we have fluoride now
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
2:10:38
you have replaced the where where did you source that from?
Speaker 332
2:10:42
Our our regular supplier got a shipment to us and they unloaded a half a trailer yesterday
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
2:10:48
everybody was sending me that article over the last yeah here recently so I just wanted to check. thank you no problem
thank you one more question if you don't mind. how much how much a year do y'all spend in fluoride on florida acquisitions? I should have been better prepared
Speaker 333
2:11:05
for that question knowing how much it's been in the news. I will tell you this that
Speaker 312
2:11:10
we're working on our budget and they've told me it's a300% rate increase for 27 I mean Mr Bohannon if you will provide
me with that information I will make sure that Senator Penzo gets it you yes sir I want to thank everybody for
coming huh senator hickey I'm I'll come to you in a moment also Doctor Lane I didn't forget about you we're trying to shuffle. you will be invited to this October hearing and we'll try to do that I apologize I thought I could slip you in here but if you'll bear with us we'll we'll take
care of that Senator hickey you're recognized
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
2:11:56
yes just Mr Chair this is the thing I've asked the question whenever we come back next month of the psC that I would like them to do their own calculations of how it's more beneficial that that they thatgy spread that out or if it would have been more beneficial that it was taken immediately you know so it wouldn't have went into the writer so this is my thing I want to make 100% sure that somebody doesn't say well they cannot give this information out
or you know we're bound by this or that and so I don't know if we need to get our attorneys involved and to try to work with entergy and also work with the PSC. and maybe the if entergy says well they're not supposed to do that but if they give their OKok maybe maybe the PSC can do it so the thing is is I just don't want to sit here for the next month and then all of a sudden somebody says oh no that's confidential information. there's proprietary information this and that. I don't care if they redact some of that stuff
out and we get the the cost although I prefer to have it all but I just want to kind of head that off at the past if we could Mr chairir and just go one step further
to make sure we get that information Senator hickey it sounds
like you are trying to lay out some reasonable ground rules before we come back and look at this and I certainly concur with everything you just said because so much of this information that we've seen in the newspaper is literally it's part of it even today I think this will give us a little time
to digest this ask them those questions we might not like the format that they want to do but that we can at least get an agreement of how we're going to proceed because we're again the whole idea of splitting this up was not so we could come back next month so we could get the real answers that we need so I appreciate that and certainly if we see things that their interpretation is not what we thought it was last year then we can look in January about maybe
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
2:14:00
changing the law on that but let ma'am chair so so let me ask you this are before the next meeting through the chairs or the chairs going to attempt to to work that out among both parties to make sure that they that the PSC can do that information with with your guidance
I will speak to co-chair shepherd and we will try to accomplish that so we're we're all on the same page when we show up
inoctober and and and maybe they legally can't do it
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
2:14:26
and if that's the way it is that's the way it'll be but if that's their position we'll have
to deal with that but if it's as simple asgy saying no it's ok to release it then you know I'd want us to go
to go down that path also. well you're asking the right questions and when we get those answers we can decide the best way to proceed thank you sir thank yousenator
hickey I see no one else in the queue thank you all for coming and there's nothing else we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the August 6, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Discussion of Data Center Development in Arkansas
D. Other Business
E. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — ENERGY - JOINT, Sep 15, 2026 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| EXHIBIT B - Meeting Minutes 08-06-2026 | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| EXHIBIT C2 - Joint Energy Comission Presentation Sept. 2026 | Exhibit | 4 | Official source ↗ |
| HANDOUT 1 - DC 101 Branded Leave Behind | Exhibit | 2 | Official source ↗ |
| HANDOUT 2 - Arkansas Economy | Exhibit | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Mark Johnson Chair
Unverified
Representative Rick Beck
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Speaker 7
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
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Representative Jack Ladyman
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Speaker 46
Speaker 32
Chair
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Speaker 67
Senator Matt McKee
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Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
Speaker 52
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
Speaker 137
Representative John P. Carr
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Representative Richard McGrew
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Speaker 169
Bob Atkins
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Eric Foister
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Speaker 177
Speaker 178
Speaker 180
Speaker 181
Speaker 184
Speaker 187
Speaker 189
Speaker 190
Speaker 185
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
Speaker 223
Representative Ashley Hudson
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Speaker 226
Speaker 228
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 247
Speaker 220
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
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Speaker 170
Senator Clint Penzo
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Speaker 279
Speaker 235
Speaker 286
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Jean Block
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Speaker 306
Speaker 310
Speaker 311
Speaker 315
Speaker 312
Speaker 319
Speaker 325
Speaker 90
Speaker 332
Speaker 333