Entergy 2004 Annual Report Download - page 16

•In January 2004, Entergy Louisiana
filed a $167 million rate case that
included resources from our
Generation Supply Plan and
reliability investments. The potential
rate increase to customers would be
largely offset by estimated fuel savings
that would result from securing
capacity under our Generation Supply
Plan. Discussions include a formula
rate plan and are ongoing with a
potential decision expected around
the end of first quarter 2005.
•Entergy Gulf States – Louisiana
requested a $22 million rate increase
in May 2002. In January 2005, a
procedural schedule for a global
settlement proposal was advanced.
The settlement proposal resolves 12
open dockets and includes a formula
rate plan. The current timeline calls
for the Commissionto consider the
global settlement proposal in
March 2005.
•EntergyGulf States – Texas filed for
a$68 million rate increase in August
2004 after the move to Retail Open
Access was delayed. The Public
Utility Commission of Texas
dismissed our case in October and
failed to act onour request for
rehearing, effectively dismissing our
case by operation of law. That’s
something we have to change and we
will work aggressively and relentlessly
to resolve this situation. We are
currently pursuing an appeal in a
Texas district courtas well as
legislativeaction to get our case
back on track to create financial
stability and certainty for Entergy
Gulf States – Texas.
In addition to state regulatory actions,
we are also actively pursuing positive
regulatory outcomes with FERC.
While the majority of these actions are
not expected to have an impact on our
future earnings, we are still fighting for
the best possible outcomes for our
customers. Why? Because we know that
in order to build lasting value for our
shareholders, we must operate in a
regulatory environment that enables us
to deliver the best possible value to
our customers.
Long term, we believe the incentive
rate structures in place at Entergy
Mississippi and Entergy New Orleans
are excellent models. They include
financial incentives to the utilityupon
meeting performance hurdles in areas
such as reliability, customer service, and
the customers’ overall cost of power.
By aligning shareholder interests with
customer interests, these structures drive
the right behaviors and the right results.
AComprehensive Supply Plan
The gap between our utility-owned
capacity and our demand load profile is
close to four gigawatts. To close that
gap, we have developed a comprehensive
Generation Supply Plan that prescribes
both the contract purchase of power as
well as acquisition of generation assets.
The merchant generation capacity
within our service territory is
approximately 19 GW – ample capacity
to both meet our four GW-capacity
shortfalland displace some of our less
efficient, older units. We believe
contracting for or purchasing a portion
of our generation requirements from
merchant generators creates opportunities
to lower our customers’ rates.
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Entergy Corporation and Subsidiaries 2004
Weaspire to industry-leading customer
satisfaction in our utilities and we steadily
invest in our operations to improve reliability.
Since 1998, our investments have delivered an
improvement in both the average frequency and
the average duration of outages, and in the
number of regulatory outage complaints.
OUTAGE FREQUENCY
average number per customer per year
Down 48%
98 04
1.85
OUTAGE DURATION
average minutes per customer per year
Down 39%
98 04
169
278
REGULATORY OUTAGE COMPLAINTS
Down 85%
98 04
81
535
3.54