Louisiana regulators approve 994 MW, combined-cycle power plant
Entergy’s Entergy Louisiana on June 28 said that the Louisiana Public Service Commission has voted to approve construction of the Lake Charles Power Station, which is a 994 MW, combined-cycle power plant in Westlake.
The company said that it expects to issue full notice to proceed to construction by Aug. 1.
The natural gas-fired plant, which is scheduled to be in service by June 2020, will cost about $872 million to build, including transmission and other project-related costs and contingency, the company said.
As reported last November, the proposed project site in Westlake is near the company’s existing Nelson units. The Nelson site was chosen after multiple sites were considered based on a range of considerations related to reliability, cost, and technical feasibility.
The power station is expected to use existing infrastructure and resources at the Nelson site, including transmission and cooling water infrastructure. Generation from the resource is expected to interconnect with the Midcontinent ISO (MISO) system at a 138-kV, 230-kV, and/or a 500-kV transmission switchyard located at or near the Nelson site. Furthermore, the site is located close to large load concentrations, which improves reliability and reduces losses.
An Entergy spokesperson on June 28 told TransmissionHub that the company is still going through the MISO process, so all of the details concerning the electric transmission component of the project are not finalized. Entergy’s initial estimate put the cost at about $43 million to upgrade electric transmission equipment and build a new interconnection to the switchyard at Nelson, the spokesperson said.
