NEW
ORLEANS, May 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Entergy is
supporting customer growth, expectations for cleaner energy,
growing reliability and resilience needs, while balancing
affordability for its customers, said Chair and Chief Executive
Officer Drew Marsh, during the
company's 75th annual meeting of shareholders today.
"As we look ahead, we see unprecedented growth potential for our
company and our region stemming from a number of factors, including
strong industrial sales," said Marsh. "This growth has been driven
by industrial manufacturing investments along the Gulf Coast area,
which has advantages unmatched anywhere else that are driving
investment to our region."
Regarding Entergy's customers' desire to achieve their own
carbon reduction goals, Marsh added that the company is "focused on
capturing that tremendous growth opportunity for the benefit of all
our customers. We're meeting our customers' growing reliability and
resilience needs, all while balancing bill affordability for our
customers. Together, we're writing a growth story for the Entergy
of tomorrow."
To meet our customers' expectations, Entergy has built its
capital plan across generation, transmission and distribution
investments.
Entergy is focused on initiatives to improve outcomes for all
stakeholders, including the completion of major rate filings and
decisions, operational investments, and continued progress on
several key customer solutions like green tariffs, renewable energy
and other carbon-free energy projects.
Marsh cited several achievements for the business in 2023:
- "Entergy's generation fleet had an outstanding year while
maintaining a focus on safety. Even with challenges from
record-breaking heat last summer, we achieved our best forced
outage rate since 2011. Not only did we meet our customers'
demands, we also exported power to other utilities during the
moments that mattered."
- "2023 was a strong year for customer growth. We signed 61 new
electric service agreements, representing more than 1.3 gigawatts
of generation capacity. And, driven by customer interest, we
continued to invest in renewable energy and other clean technology
solutions. We now have more than 900 megawatts in service and
approximately 2,100 megawatts of renewable energy projects are
approved or under construction."
- "Entergy Mississippi will soon provide power to support the
single largest capital investment in the state of Mississippi's history. A $10 billion planned investment by Amazon Web
Services, or AWS, which received supportive legislation finalized
by Mississippi lawmakers earlier
this year, will bring new jobs and economic development
opportunities to the state."
- "Our customers are very interested in resilience investment,
and our stakeholder engagement focus on resilience in 2023 has led
to important milestones in early 2024. Those include approval by
the New Orleans City Council to invest in important hardening,
battery and microgrid investments in New Orleans East with the
support of approximately $55 million
of grants through the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act. In addition, the Louisiana Public Service Commission recently
approved $1.9 billion of investment
over the next five years to support roughly 2,100 individual
resilience projects across the state. These are the first
critical steps to improve our network to meet changing customer
expectations for reliability and resilience in an information
economy and an increasingly hostile weather environment."
- "We again delivered steady and predictable growth last
year, with adjusted earnings per share once again exceeding our
original expectations. We also grew our quarterly dividend per
share by approximately 6% and, importantly, we met our credit
metric targets."
Read about our growth opportunities ahead and view additional
milestones from last year in our 2023 Performance Report.
Other business
Additional business conducted during today's shareholder
meeting:
- Entergy shareholders elected all 11 nominees to the company's
board of directors.
- Two management proposals related to the appointment of the
company's independent public accountants and executive compensation
were voted on and approved by shareholders.
- Marsh responded to several shareholder questions on a range of
topics, including the company's progress on grid resilience efforts
and artificial intelligence.
A replay of the meeting and responses to questions will be
published on Entergy's Investor Relations website next
week.
About Entergy
Entergy (NYSE: ETR) is a Fortune 500 company that powers life
for 3 million customers through our operating companies in
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. We're investing in the reliability and
resilience of the energy system while helping our region transition
to cleaner, more efficient energy solutions. With roots in our
communities for more than 100 years, Entergy is a nationally
recognized leader in sustainability and corporate citizenship.
Since 2018, we have delivered more than $100
million in economic benefits each year to local communities
through philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy. Entergy is
headquartered in New Orleans,
Louisiana, and has approximately 12,000 employees. Learn
more at entergy.com and connect with @Entergy on social
media. #WePowerLife
Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements
In this news release, and from time to time, Entergy Corporation
makes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such
forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements
regarding Entergy's current financial and operational outlooks;
industrial load growth outlooks; statements regarding its
resilience plans, goals, beliefs, or expectations; and other
statements of Entergy's plans, beliefs, or expectations included in
this news release. Readers are cautioned not to place undue
reliance on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as
of the date of this news release. Except to the extent required by
the federal securities laws, Entergy undertakes no obligation to
publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether
as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks,
uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to
differ materially from those expressed or implied in such
forward-looking statements, including (a) those factors discussed
elsewhere in this news release and in Entergy's most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K, any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q,
and Entergy's other reports and filings made under the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934; (b) uncertainties associated with (1) rate
proceedings, formula rate plans, and other cost recovery
mechanisms, including the risk that costs may not be recoverable to
the extent or on the timeline anticipated by the utilities and (2)
implementation of the ratemaking effects of changes in law; (c)
uncertainties associated with (1) realizing the benefits of its
resilience plan, including impacts of the frequency and intensity
of future storms and storm paths, as well as the pace of project
completion and (2) efforts to remediate the effects of major storms
and recover related restoration costs; (d) risks associated with
operating nuclear facilities, including plant relicensing,
operating, and regulatory costs and risks; (e) changes in
decommissioning trust fund values or earnings or in the timing or
cost of decommissioning Entergy's nuclear plant sites; (f)
legislative and regulatory actions and risks and uncertainties
associated with claims or litigation by or against Entergy and its
subsidiaries; (g) risks and uncertainties associated with executing
on business strategies, including strategic transactions that
Entergy or its subsidiaries may undertake and the risk that any
such transaction may not be completed as and when expected and the
risk that the anticipated benefits of the transaction may not be
realized; (h) direct and indirect impacts to Entergy or its
customers from pandemics, terrorist attacks, geopolitical
conflicts, cybersecurity threats, data security breaches, or other
attempts to disrupt Entergy's business or operations, and/or other
catastrophic events; and (i) effects on Entergy or its customers of
(1) changes in federal, state, or local laws and regulations and
other governmental actions or policies, including changes in
monetary, fiscal, tax, environmental, or energy policies; (2) the
effects of changes in commodity markets, capital markets, or
economic conditions; and (3) the effects of technological change,
including the costs, pace of development, and commercialization of
new and emerging technologies.
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SOURCE Entergy Corporation