Entergy (NYSE:ETR) reported 2025 adjusted earnings per share of $3.91, landing in the top half of its guidance range, as management pointed to continued momentum from large-load customer growth and an expanding capital program aimed at generation, reliability, and grid resilience.
On the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call, Chair and CEO Drew Marsh described 2025 as an “affirmational” year following what he called a transformational period for the utility, while CFO Kimberly Fontan said results reflected strong sales growth and the effects of customer-focused investments, partially offset by higher other O&M and a higher share count from settling equity forwards.
2025 earnings and growth outlook
Management reiterated its expectation for greater than 8% adjusted EPS annual growth through 2029. For 2026, Fontan said guidance assumes continued benefits from sales growth, including increasing data center usage, alongside the impacts of customer investments and related regulatory actions, as well as higher depreciation, property taxes, financing costs, and a higher fully diluted average share count.
Large-load demand, data centers, and customer protections
Marsh emphasized industrial-driven load growth, citing 4% sales growth in 2025 and an expectation that retail sales growth will accelerate to an 8% compound annual growth rate through 2029 from 2025, driven by 15% industrial growth. He said Entergy signed electric service agreements totaling approximately 3.5 gigawatts in the past year and maintained its pipeline at 7–12 gigawatts for data centers and 3–5 gigawatts for other industries.
Marsh said Entergy’s service territory continues to attract customers due to low electric rates, vertical integration, a business-friendly environment, and infrastructure access. He also highlighted customer announcements and development milestones across steel, petrochemical, and LNG sectors, along with additional data center activity across Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Management also discussed how it structures large customer agreements. Marsh said Entergy’s long-term data center contracts include early termination penalties and minimum bills intended to protect other customers from stranded investment risk, and Fontan added that the company includes hyperscale data centers in its plan only once an ESA is signed and then at minimum bill levels. In response to analyst questions about customer walk-away risk, management said agreements include significant credit requirements, termination fees, and minimum bills, with obligations “backstopped” up to the parent company for those customers.
Marsh estimated the data center contracts already in place will generate approximately $5 billion in rate offsets over the life of the contracts from contributions to fixed costs, which he said equates to more than $5 per residential customer per month on average, with potential to grow if additional contracts are signed. In Q&A, management characterized that estimate as tied to customers’ contribution to embedded fixed costs and said customer benefits also include improved reliability and resilience and lower fuel costs from newer, more efficient generation.
Capital plan rises to $43 billion through 2029
Entergy’s four-year customer-centric capital plan increased to $43 billion through 2029, up $2 billion from the preliminary plan management presented previously, with Fontan attributing the increase largely to the planned Cottonwood Generating Station acquisition. Entergy’s 2026 capital plan was described as $11.6 billion, about $3.6 billion higher than 2025, reflecting increased investment to support customer growth.
Fontan said equity associated with the four-year plan remains $4.4 billion, at the lower end of the company’s targeted 10%–15% equity portion of the capital plan, and the forecast includes $1 billion of hybrids in the back half of the period. She said the company has sold forward contracts through its ATM program and completed a block transaction last March, reducing price risk. For the 2026–2029 equity need, she said about 45% is already contracted, and Entergy “wouldn’t need to transact again until well into 2027.” She also noted that after year-end the company settled an additional $345 million, or about 4.6 million shares, to fund customer investments.
On generation, Marsh said Entergy invested about $8 billion in 2025, with roughly half in generation, and highlighted progress at the Orange County Advanced Power Station ahead of a summer in-service date, along with work on Delta Blues in Mississippi. He listed multiple projects in earlier stages expected over the next few years, including Franklin Farms Units One and Two and Waterford 5 in Louisiana; Legend and Lone Star in Texas; Ironwind in Arkansas; and Vicksburg Advanced Power Station and Trace View in Mississippi. He also said five owned and contracted solar resources totaling 740 MW are approved or in progress, and that including gas, solar, and battery storage, Entergy has nearly 9 gigawatts approved and under construction toward its planned 13 gigawatts of new capacity over the next four years.
In response to questions on equipment availability, management said it has “clear line of sight” on equipment to serve 8 gigawatts of incremental load above the current plan, and confirmed EPC engagement for projects in the outlook and beyond. Marsh added that Entergy expects to utilize the turbines it has ordered on the current timeline, and said if contractual arrangements are not in place when turbine payments begin, the company would likely seek reimbursement agreements from customers.
Operations, storms, and regulatory developments
Marsh reported Entergy’s nuclear fleet operated with a 90% unit capability factor in 2025, with refueling outages completed on schedule. He also said the company delivered more than 35 MW of additional clean capacity from plant upgrades and equipment replacement, and pointed to a planned 45-MW upgrade at Waterford 3 later in 2026 enabled by prior turbine investments.
On the grid, Marsh said Entergy invested about $3.5 billion in energy delivery in 2025, including accelerated resilience projects. He said the company has invested $800 million in approved accelerated resilience work to date, including 17 substation upgrades and 59 line-hardening projects, upgrading more than 15,800 structures. He said Entergy’s four-year, $17 billion energy delivery capital plan includes construction on more than 570 miles of 500 kV lines and 175 miles of other transmission lines, plus new substations and $1.4 billion of approved projects to harden more than 45,000 assets. Entergy New Orleans has filed for a second phase of its resilience program seeking approval for up to $400 million in projects.
Management also discussed Winter Storm Fern, which affected parts of the service area in late January. Marsh said the storm disrupted 170,000 customers and resulted in more than 360,000 cumulative outages as some customers lost power multiple times. Fontan provided preliminary restoration cost estimates of up to $300 million for Louisiana, up to $200 million for Mississippi, and about $60 million for Arkansas, with most of the cost described as capital. She said Entergy expects recovery through “normal mechanisms.”
Regulatory and legislative updates highlighted on the call included:
- Arkansas: Passage of the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act; approval of a special rate contract for Google; approval of construction of the Jefferson Power Station and establishment of a cost benchmark. Management said Entergy Arkansas plans to file its first base rate case since 2015 later this month, targeting a rate change “well below 3%,” potentially lower for residential customers.
- Louisiana: A policy proposal adopted by the Louisiana Public Service Commission referred to as the Louisiana Lightning Initiative, intended to provide an expedited path to meet large-load needs in specified situations, subject to prudence review. Entergy Louisiana also filed a request to acquire the Cottonwood facility for $1.5 billion plus $300 million for maintenance and improvements, and requested a commission decision by year-end to support an early-next-year acquisition.
- Texas: Legislation enabling rider recovery of MISO capacity costs. Management said Entergy Texas expects to use a generation rider after Orange County Power Station is placed in service, which would trigger a base rate case in 2027.
Entergy also announced it will host an Investor Day on June 9 in New York City. Marsh said the company expects to provide more color on its data center positioning and a longer outlook, and noted that the timing of potential large customer contract announcements remains uncertain.
About Entergy (NYSE:ETR)
Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) is an integrated energy company headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, that generates, transmits and distributes electricity. The company’s operations combine regulated utility services with competitive power production, supplying retail electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers while also participating in wholesale energy markets. Entergy’s generation fleet includes nuclear, natural gas, hydropower and other resources, and it operates a network of transmission and distribution assets to deliver power to end users.
Entergy conducts its regulated utility business through state-based operating subsidiaries that serve customers across parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and southeast Texas.
