We're fighting climate change at home, so our communities have the future they deserve

Electric utilities play a critical role in delivering clean energy solutions that are essential in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and we have long recognized a significant opportunity to innovate and invest to improve the world around us. In 2021, we realigned several teams to create a new sustainable planning, development and operations organization to support and accomplish our climate goals more effectively.

Entergy is taking aggressive action to combat climate change and its impacts as illustrated below. Our strategic investments in transforming our generation portfolio to cleaner resources indicates we will likely achieve our goal of reducing our 2000-level emission intensity by 50% before our stated target of 2030.


Read our latest climate report here

Our 2022 climate report updates stakeholders on our climate progress and builds on our foundational 2019 climate report, which established our 2030 emission rate goal, and our 2020 addendum, which introduced our net-zero emissions by 2050 commitment. We have enhanced our climate milestones and added an interim goal: we expect half of our power generation capacity will come from clean, carbon-free energy sources by 2030.

On an emissions-per-megawatt-produced basis, Entergy is one of the lowest-emitting electric utilities in the United States. A 2022 benchmarking report, which is based on 2020 data, shows Entergy as the seventh largest generation of investor- and privately-owned power producers in the United States, but has the sixth lowest emission rate. For more details on how Entergy compares, see the charts below:

Meeting our climate goals

Our energy mix includes more than five gigawatts of carbon-free nuclear capacity, a fleet of highly efficient gas resources and a fast-growing portfolio of renewable resources.

Chart incudes generation from both owned and purchased power resources as well as renewable energy credits.

Over the five-year period from 2017 through 2021, we invested $22 billion in our utility business, benefiting all stakeholders in many ways, including modernizing our generation fleet to reduce emissions as well as cost to our customers.

Over the next three years, 2022 through 2024, we plan to add approximately 1,600 megawatts of renewables, which will more than triple our existing renewable portfolio. Our supply plan extends well beyond our three-year planning horizon, and we see the growth of renewable resources in our portfolio increasing significantly. Our current plan anticipates at least 11 gigawatts of renewable resources by the end of 2030. Between these renewables and our nuclear assets, we anticipate meeting our carbon-free capacity goal of 50% by 2030. Learn more about our renewable energy portfolio here.

Entergy’s investments to transform its generation fleet and nuclear improvements have greatly reduced both absolute air emissions and emission rates. Since 2000, the utility has added approximately 10,800 MW of clean, highly efficient, flexible, dispatchable units along with a growing amount of solar generation resources are not only cleaner, but they also provide significant savings to customers from lower fuel costs.

Our utility companies are the largest providers of solar energy in both Louisiana and Arkansas, and we’ve recently built the largest utility-owned solar facility in Mississippi. Read updates about our solar projects here.

We plan to cease using coal by the end of 2030. Coal resources contributed only 7% to our utility’s 2021 energy mix. Further details of our investments in cleaner resources are available in our 2022 Integrated Report, starting on page 28.

These investments have greatly reduced both absolute air emissions and emission rates since 2000. In 2021, the most recent benchmarking data available, Entergy’s emission rate was 677 pounds per megawatt-hour, much lower than the national average of 853 pounds per MWh. The national average is based on 2019 data, the most recent information available.

We are also investing in owned and contracted carbon-free renewable generation. In 2021, our renewable resources – including solar, wind, renewable energy credits, hydroelectric, biomass, landfill gas, and waste heat – supplied approximately 2.5 million MWh, or approximately 2% of total electric demand, to our utility customers.

For climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and water performance disclosures, see our ESG disclosures page.

Average heat rate by fuel in 2021

Fuel

Regulatory
body

Average heat rate (mmbtu/MWh)

Coal

APSC

9.707

Coal

LPSC

11.208

Coal

MPSC

10.284

Coal

PUCT

11.182

Gas

APSC

7.356

Gas

CCNO

7.611

Gas

LPSC

8.265

Gas

MPSC

7.353

Gas

PUCT

9.026