entertainment CEO Drew Marsh said the rapid construction of data centers doesn’t have to be a burden on residential communities.
“Data centers really want to be good neighbors,” Marsh told CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Tuesday. “They have reputations that they want to protect and they want to be part of the community.”
The surge in AI-related power demand has raised concerns among policymakers and homeowners that residential customers will end up footing the bill for data centers. Marsh said Entergy’s approach is designed to avoid that outcome by requiring data center operators to cover the cost of servicing their facilities while also contributing to costs that would otherwise be borne by the utility’s entire customer base.
The utility, which serves customers in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas, adopted a framework called “FairShare Plus” for its large data center customers.
“The fair share portion is that we pay all the incremental costs of the infrastructure needed to support it over the term of the contract,” Marsh said.
Marsh added that the framework goes beyond simply requiring data center operators to pay for the infrastructure they use.
“The plus part is that it also covers some of your fixed costs,” Marsh says. “That means overhead costs and rainy day costs that existing customers would already be paying.”
At Entergy’s investor day Tuesday, Marsh said these provisions are expected to save existing customers about $7 billion over a 15- to 20-year contract term.
