Last week may have been one of the most historical times in Cleco history.
On Feb. 4, Cleco acquired NRG South Central Generating (South Central), a subsidiary of NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG), for $1 billion.
“This is the largest acquisition in Cleco’s 85-year history,” Bill Fontenot, Cleco president and CEO, said in a news release. “This significant investment highlights the commitment of Cleco and its owners to our customers, communities, employees and the state of Louisiana.”
On Wednesday, Fontenot was in front of the Eunice Rotary Club to talk about things like the company’s vision, history and change from public to private company.
But the headline was that on Monday morning Cleco had 1,200 employee and by Wednesday it had 1,500 employees. And, when the transaction with NRG South Central was completed Monday afternoon the company went from serving 150,000 wholesale customers to 500,000 wholesale customers.
“This was not a minor transaction for the company,” he said.
“What we did was we acquired five generating sites that were owned by NRG South Central Generating,” he said.
Cleco has focused on its future with initiatives to achieve its vision.
Among those has been information and operations technologies, he said.
Information technology is allowing the company to do remote meter reading, pinpoint problems in its power system to speed repairs and operate its system remotely.
Cleco joined with the city of Lafayette and Entergy in a $400 million investment to harden the power system from Houma to Eunice.
“What does that mean to south Louisiana? You can see that we are building this solution to withstand hurricane-like winds and also as Lafayette has grown, as Houma has grown, as communities have grown, south Louisiana has always had concerns about potential brownouts under high load conditions. This will mitigate all those issues in the future,” he said.
According to a news release under the Monday transaction, “Cleco Cajun LLC (Cleco Cajun), an unregulated subsidiary of Cleco, acquired eight generating assets totaling 3,555 MW, transmission operations and contracts to provide wholesale power to nine Louisiana cooperatives, five municipalities across Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, and one investor-owned utility. Seven of the generation assets are managed by Cleco while the Cottonwood plant in Texas is temporarily leased back to NRG for operation.:
The company listed the following highlights:
— Cleco Cajun and Cleco Power remain separate businesses, independently operated and managed by local management located in Louisiana.
— The transaction significantly increases the scale of Cleco’s operations in Louisiana by more than doubling its generating capacity and increasing the number of end-user customers by approximately 77 percent.
— The transaction enables enhanced customer service through the sharing of operational expertise and management best practices.
— Electricity rates for Cleco Cajun and Cleco Power customers are not impacted.
— Employment levels, employee compensation levels and employee benefits are maintained for Cleco Cajun, Cleco Power and Cleco employees.
“Cleco is transforming. Not only are we growing our company, but we are modernizing our company through technology and taking innovative approaches to grid modernization, to name a few,” said Fontenot. “These projects, along with the acquisition of South Central, bring Cleco closer to achieving our vision of being Louisiana’s leading energy company.”