Entergy Louisiana President & CEO Phillip May Discusses Power at Scale in FUELED Season 6 Finale

FUELED: Powering Louisiana’s Future concludes Season 6 with a system-level look at what it will take to power Louisiana’s next era of economic growth.

In Episode 7, Kathryn Fenstermaker sits down with Phillip May, President and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, to discuss rapidly growing electricity demand, “speed to power,” major infrastructure investment, customer protection, grid resilience, and the challenge of building a power system capable of supporting development at a scale Louisiana has rarely experienced.

The conversation arrives at a pivotal moment for the state. Major industrial, manufacturing, technology, and data center investments are changing not only how much electricity Louisiana may need, but how quickly utilities must be prepared to deliver it.

For May, meeting that demand requires thinking beyond individual power plants. Generation, transmission, substations, distribution infrastructure, fuel supply, redundancy, and resilience must increasingly be planned as parts of the same system.

At the same time, growth cannot come at the expense of the customers already connected to that system. Throughout the conversation, May returns to a straightforward principle: “Growth will pay for growth.”

He explains how Entergy approaches the costs and risks associated with extraordinarily large new loads, including infrastructure assigned directly to those customers and contractual protections intended to limit the exposure of existing ratepayers. The goal, May says, is not simply for new development to cover its own costs, but for that growth to ultimately strengthen the broader electric system.

Episode Highlights

• Why Louisiana’s newest industrial and technology projects represent a shift from incremental electricity growth to system-scale demand.
• What “speed to power” means as companies increasingly consider electricity availability and delivery timelines during site selection.
• How Entergy evaluates the financial strength, readiness, execution capability, and long-term commitments behind major proposed projects.
• Why generation, transmission, distribution, fuel supply, and resilience must increasingly be planned together.
• What May means when he says “growth will pay for growth.”
• How Entergy structures large-load agreements to help protect existing customers from the costs and risks created by extraordinary new demand.
• How major new customers can contribute to the existing electric system and create broader benefits for Louisiana ratepayers.
• The roles natural gas, solar, battery storage, nuclear power, and emerging technologies could play in Louisiana’s future generation mix.
• Why building additional transmission capacity is just as important as developing new generation.
• How grid-hardening investments can improve recovery and system performance during extreme weather.
• Why Louisiana’s ability to move quickly could influence whether today’s wave of economic investment continues to grow.
• May’s vision for creating opportunities that allow more Louisianans to build careers, raise families, and thrive at home.

FUELED host Kathryn Fenstermaker sits down with Phillip May, President and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, during the recording of Episode 7 of Season 6: Powering Louisiana’s Future.

Episode 7 also brings the larger story of Season 6 full circle.

The season began at the community level with the cooperative model and expanded through municipal power, disaster recovery and grid resilience, new generation, economic development, and regulatory oversight. The finale brings those perspectives together at utility scale, examining what happens when Louisiana’s economic ambitions become an infrastructure challenge that must ultimately be planned, financed, built, and operated.

For May, the measure of success goes beyond megawatts or projects announced. It is whether the infrastructure being built today creates lasting opportunity for the people who call Louisiana home.

“What fuels me is the opportunity to transform this state in a way that we haven’t seen in generations,” May says.

That perspective provides a fitting conclusion to a season centered on the systems, infrastructure, decisions, and people responsible for powering Louisiana’s future.

Watch Episode 7

Watch Episode 7: Power at Scale: Phillip May on Building Louisiana’s Next Grid

Watch the full Episode 7 conversation on YouTube

Explore FUELED

Season 6 brought together leaders from across Louisiana’s energy landscape to examine how power is generated, delivered, regulated, planned, and ultimately connected to the state’s economic future.

Explore every episode and season of the FUELED podcast.