Entergy 2004 Annual Report Download - page 18

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-16 -
Entergy Corporation and Subsidiaries 2004
njust five years, Entergy Nuclear
has acquired five plants, created a
$200 million business, and grown
as-reported earnings from six cents per share in
1999 to $1.06 per share in 2004 – a compound
annual growth rate of 78 percent. And we believe
the future can be just as promising. Far from being
threatened, we believe nuclear must continue to
grow as a percent of U.S. generation as it offers the
best possible combination of safe, clean, and
low-cost energy.
The operational expertise of our nuclear team is
well-recognized in the industry and has led to a new
revenue stream from service contracts – including
management services at the Cooper Nuclear Station,
license renewal services, and nuclear decommissioning.
In our nuclear business, we believe our operational
strength can enable us to drive growth over and
above the intrinsic growth rate.
Safety and Security Followed by Productivity
We own 10 nuclear plants at eight sites – five in
our regulated utilities and five in the Northeast –
making us the second-largest nuclear operator in the
U.S. In every one of our nuclear plants, we put
safetyand security concerns above all else.
Upon acquiring each unit in our Northeast fleet,
we focused first on improving the safety of the plant
and then on improving the capacity factor through
the material condition of the plant. On an ongoing
basis, we push for continuous improvement to move
our Northeast fleet to the performance levels of our
regulated fleet. It’s an operating approach that has
delivered consistently strong results since 1999 and
last year was no different.
In 2004, Entergy plants continued to deliver
excellent performance metrics. The average INPO
Index for Entergy plants was 96.7 percent – up
morethan 25 percent since 1999. Outage duration
averaged 29 days, compared to 43 days in 1999, and
our forced loss rate improved to 1.69 percent from
10.00 percent in 1999.
In additionwe continue to drive production costs
in our Northeast fleet down to levels closer to our
regulated fleet and to the industry average. Average
production costs declined from $29 per MWh prior
to Entergy ownership to $20 per MWhin 2004,
and are expected to be below $19 per MWh by 2006.
Production costs in our regulated fleet remained
constant at $15 per MWh.
Nuclear
Strong and Vigilant
SAFETY AND SECURITY FIRST
s
Weput safety first in our nuclear operations and in our utilities. Our goal is to have an accident-free work
environment – nothing less is good enough. And we are fiercely protective of this goal – pursuing
productivity improvements only when safety is assured.
I