Entergy hosts a town hall on the Ridgeland power plant (Photo from Entergy)
- An environmental impact assessment and other studies necessary to meet state and federal guidelines before start of construction will now get underway.
A Madison County city is one step closer to having a natural gas power plant built in its community, but the proposed facility is not without its detractors.
Earlier this week, the Ridgeland Board of Aldermen unanimously approved a conditional use permit for Entergy to build the power plant.
The vote overrode the city’s zoning board decision to reject the $1 billion project in mid-April.
The conditional use permit allows the utility to determine if land along West County Line Road is suitable for the proposed plant.
“We’re excited about it because it’s a very energy efficient power plant, we know there will be no problems, nobody will even know it’s there, no pollution that sort of thing, and it’ll bring a lot of business to Ridgeland and Madison County,” said Ridgeland Mayor Gene McGee, noting that the plant could bring millions of dollars to the city’s school system.
Residents along the road do not all see the benefits of having a 760-megawatt natural gas-fired combined-cycle combustion turbine power plant and a substation capable of transmitting power near their homes.
Even as Entergy says the advanced technology used to operate the plant is safe, clean, and quiet, resident Barbara Johnson is opposed to the plant.
“But what about our lives? The value, they are putting a price tag on our lives, but why, why do they do that?” Johnson said after the meeting.
Jeremy Vanderloo, vice president of business operations, said the company understands that residents have concerns, “and the safety of our communities and employees has always been our leading value.”
“It’s why our local power generation fleet meets or exceeds the EPA and MDEQ health requirements and abide by noise ordinances. This new site will be no different,” said Vanderloo.
An environmental impact assessment and other studies necessary to meet state and federal guidelines before start of construction will now get underway.
If constructed, the facility will sit on approximately 75 acres of the 585-acre property, the utility said, providing room for ample setback and buffer space from the road and houses.
From planning to starting operation, construction will take about seven years, Entergy said.
The construction alone is a more than $1 billion investment that will occur over about four years. Site work will begin mid- to late summer 2025, with construction starting in 2026 and an expected in-service date in 2029, the utility said.
The company believes the site along West County Line Road is ideal for the proposed plant. It already has the existing high-voltage transmission corridor in the area, which is comprised of 115kV, 230kV and 500kV lines, the first of which was built in 1946. Additional lines were built in the mid-1980s and early 1990s as the metro Jackson area and power needs grew.
This corridor provides an ideal interconnection point for a power plant, the company said.
“Adding a plant to our fleet is necessary to serve our customers and ensure long-term reliability of the power grid. The Ridgeland site fulfills all the requirements to drive operational efficiencies while maintaining the lowest possible costs for our customers,” Entergy said. “If the plant were built in another location, it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars more to build the infrastructure needed to connect it to a similar high-voltage transmission corridor. Since that infrastructure already exists at this Ridgeland site, locating the plant here saves all our customers money.”
In October, the company broke ground on a similar plant in Greenville to the one proposed in Ridgeland. Entergy said the Delta Blues Advanced Power Station will be a 754-megawatt facility, representing a $1.2 billion investment and employing about 21 full-time personnel once it comes online.
