Entergy Arkansas customer bills to drop this month

Thanks to a mix of its own low-cost power generation portfolio and lower gas prices over the past year, Entergy Arkansas recently announced that as of April, residential, commercial, and industrial customers alike should see monthly bill decreases.

Prompted by the lowest fuel rest in more than a decade, which is adjusted and passed onto customers, the company announced that an average residential customer should see a decrease of about $10 (7.49 percent) on their monthly bills. Commercial and industrial customers’ savings should range anywhere from 1.6 percent to 17.7 percent. The new rates will be effective until March 2025, unless an interim adjustment is required.

“Although our rates are consistently lower than the regional and national average, we continue to keep affordability for our customers at the forefront of our decisions,” Ventrell Thompson, vice president of customer service, said. “The total decrease customers see on their bills will vary based on their individual energy usage but comes at a time when our customers need bill relief and will extend during the upcoming hot summer months.”

The new rate included $8.9 million in costs, being shifted to all of Entergy Arkansas’ customers as a result of private net-metering installations. The company serves approximately 730,000 customers across 63 counties of Arkansas.

As noted, though, this year’s final figures were helped along by the company’s diverse energy portfolio. More than 71 percent of its energy production last year came from nuclear energy and another 15 percent from natural gas. Later this year, it hopes to add to its solar generation portfolio as well with an additional 530 MW, followed by another 400 MW next year. According to William Cunningham, director of resource planning for Entergy Arkansas, its fuel mix currently includes nuclear, natural gas, coal, solar, and hydropower.