OG&E's Google power deals: Arkansas staff says deny, Oklahoma says yes

Short answer: On October 15, Arkansas Public Service Commission staff recommended denying the two long-term capacity deals OG&E signed as part of its Google data center contract, saying OG&E had not shown the pricing is reasonable. Oklahoma waved the same two deals through a settlement in September. The only public record of the Arkansas denial is one paragraph in OGE Energy's 10-Q filed October 28, and it lands one day after OG&E asked Oklahoma to bless a $1.7 billion gas plant at about $2,252 per kW, above BloombergNEF's 2025 national benchmark.

TL;DR: Arkansas has now refused to sign off on 3 of OG&E's 2026 generation asks (Horseshoe Lake Units 13 and 14 twice, plus staff's call on the 2 Google-linked deals), while Oklahoma approved or settled the Google contract. OG&E's new Horseshoe Lake Unit 15 works out to about $2,252 per kW, roughly 3x the $736 per kW it quoted for its 2023 turbines at the same site and 4% above BloombergNEF's $2,157 combined-cycle benchmark. OG&E's own plan puts 2027 capex at $1.97 billion, more than any year in its XBRL record back to 2008, so the fight over who pays for data-center power is now a fight between two state commissions.

Key numbers

What	Number	Source, checked Oct 28 2026
Arkansas staff recommendation on the 2 Google-linked CPAs	Deny (Oct 15 2026)	OGE 10-Q
Oklahoma on the same deals	Settled Sep 9, ALJ recommended approval	OGE 10-Q
Horseshoe Lake Unit 15	755 MW, ~$1.7B, ~$2,252/kW (our math)	OGE 10-Q
BloombergNEF US combined cycle, 2025	$2,157/kW (under $1,500 in 2023)	TechCrunch
OG&E's 2023 Horseshoe Lake turbines	450 MW, $331M, ~$736/kW (our math)	OG&E
Capacity need by winter 2031/32	1,922 MW, ~800 MW from SPP rule changes	OGE 10-Q
OG&E planned capex 2027	$1,970M (record vs 2008-2025 actuals)	OGE 10-Q, SEC XBRL

The denial nobody reported sits in paragraph form in a 10-Q

In May 2026 OG&E asked Oklahoma regulators to approve a special contract with Google plus two capacity purchase agreements (CPAs). A CPA is a deal where the utility pays someone else for the right to count their power plant toward its reserve requirement.

The twist: per the 10-Q, the two CPAs are with "two solar facilities that Google currently has under construction." So the utility serving Google's load would pay Google-built solar farms for capacity, and those costs get spread across OG&E's customers.

In July OG&E asked Arkansas to approve the same two CPAs, since its western Arkansas customers share the system. On October 15 the APSC staff filed testimony "recommending denial of the CPAs, stating that OG&E did not provide sufficient evidence that the pricing is reasonable and prudent." OG&E is preparing rebuttal. We searched for news coverage of that testimony on October 28 and found none.

Two states, one utility, opposite answers

Oklahoma reached a non-contested settlement on September 9 among OG&E, the state Attorney General, the Public Utility Division and Google, and the judge recommended approval. Arkansas has gone the other way all year.

In January the APSC denied a settlement and refused preapproval of Horseshoe Lake Units 13 and 14, two combustion turbines OG&E says add 448 MW. In March it again declined to call them prudent. Oklahoma regulators were not uniformly friendly either: in March the OCC dismissed OG&E's request to charge customers for Units 13 and 14 while under construction, and OG&E appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Our read: Arkansas is the state saying "show us the price" on data-center-driven supply. Nobody in the filing is blocking Google's data center itself. The contested question is narrower and bigger at once: who carries the cost if the deals are priced above market.

Unit 15: the $2,252 per kW gas plant

On October 27, one day before the 10-Q, OG&E filed for Oklahoma preapproval of Horseshoe Lake Unit 15, a combined-cycle gas unit of about 755 MW at about $1.7 billion. That is roughly $2,252 per kW by our division.

BloombergNEF put the US combined-cycle cost at $2,157 per kW in 2025, up from under $1,500 in 2023, per TechCrunch's April report. Unit 15 sits about 4% above that already-inflated benchmark.

For scale, in 2023 OG&E quoted $331 million for 450 MW of new turbines at the same site, about $736 per kW. Those were simpler peaking turbines, not combined cycle, so it is not a like-for-like price, but it shows how far the price per kW of new gas capacity on this one site has moved in three years.

Follow the money: who wins, who loses

OG&E earns a regulated return on what it builds, so a bigger rate base is the business model. Its 2026-2030 capital plan is $7,840 million, and 2027 alone is $1,970 million, higher than any annual capex in its SEC XBRL history back to 2008 (peak actual: $1,270 million in 2011). That plan does not yet include Unit 15.

Google wins certainty: a special contract with minimum billing demand and power from solar it is building anyway. Arkansas customers are the ones whose regulators keep saying the price is not proven. And about 800 MW of OG&E's 1,922 MW capacity need comes from rule changes at the Southwest Power Pool, not from new customers, a point that cuts against blaming data centers for the whole bill.

FERC also opened a show-cause case on SPP's rules for connecting large and co-located loads; responses are due November 20, 2026.

Caveats

The $2,252 and $736 per kW figures are our division of OG&E's own MW and dollar totals; final costs can move. The 2023 turbines are simple-cycle and Unit 15 is combined cycle, so compare each with its own benchmark. Staff testimony is a recommendation, not a commission order, and OG&E's rebuttal is still coming. The 10-Q does not disclose the CPA prices, so we cannot say how far above market they are, only that Arkansas staff says OG&E has not proven they are reasonable.

What to watch

• OG&E's rebuttal and the APSC procedural schedule on the Google CPAs.
• The OCC's ruling on Unit 15 and whether anyone challenges the $2,252 per kW.
• FERC SPP large-load responses, November 20; answers December 21.
• Whether other utilities' hyperscaler capacity deals draw the same "prove the price" pushback.

What this means for you

If you build or buy power near data-center load, the cost of new gas is now north of $2,000 per kW, and the place to fight it is the state commission docket, not the press release. Download our data.csv (capex history, rulings scoreboard, cost per kW) and check your own utility's preapproval filings against it. Background: our piece on why utilities, not data centers, drive power bills, more in Tensorust News and the deep tech + money hub.

Want this kind of filing caught the day it lands for any company you care about? Company Watch tracks filings, contracts and lobbying for $99/mo; we keep fixing it at no extra cost until it does what it promises.

Not financial advice. Our numbers and our read, so you can check them.

Sources

• OGE Energy Corp., Form 10-Q for Q3 2026, October 28 2026
• SEC XBRL company facts, OGE Energy, pulled October 28 2026
• TechCrunch, citing BloombergNEF, gas plant costs, April 27 2026
• OG&E press release, Horseshoe Lake turbines, May 31 2023
• OGE Energy 8-K, OCC order on Units 13 and 14 (448 MW), November 13 2025