Meta Platforms Inc. has agreed to fund the construction of seven new natural gas-fired power plants in Louisiana, a massive energy buildout designed to feed what the company calls a $10 billion artificial intelligence data center in the rural northeast corner of the state. The deal, struck with utility Entergy Louisiana, covers more than 5,200 megawatts of new generation capacity and 240 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, making it one of the largest single-customer energy commitments in U.S. history. The arrangement raises hard questions about who bears the financial risk and whether locking in fossil fuel infrastructure squares with Meta’s stated goal of matching its electricity use with 100% clean energy.
Seven Gas Plants for One Data Center
The scale of the energy package is striking. According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta will fund seven new natural gas power plants totaling more than 5,200 megawatts, along with 240 miles of 500 kilovolt transmission lines. For context, 5,200 megawatts is roughly the peak electricity demand of a mid-sized U.S. state like Arkansas. All of it will serve a single hyperscale data center on a former farm site in Richland Parish.
Reporting from Bloomberg describes the Louisiana facility as Meta’s largest data center project to date, designed specifically for energy-intensive AI workloads that demand round-the-clock power. The new plants will be integrated into Entergy’s broader grid, but the utility has acknowledged that the buildout is being driven primarily by the needs of this single customer.
Meta agreed to cover roughly half the power-plant construction cost, spread over 15 years, according to the Associated Press. That funding commitment includes cost overruns but does not extend to ongoing operations and maintenance. The remaining construction costs, plus day-to-day plant expenses, fall to Entergy Louisiana, which will recover those outlays through its regulated rate structure.
How the Deal Took Shape
The project’s public timeline began in late 2024, when the Office of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced that Meta had selected North Louisiana as the site of a $10 billion AI-optimized data center. The governor’s press release touted the project’s promised construction jobs and long-term employment, highlighting Richland Parish’s transformation from farmland to a high-tech hub.
On the regulatory side, Entergy Louisiana filed its proposal for the supporting generation and transmission resources with the Louisiana Public Service Commission on October 30, 2024. The utility’s application, documented in LPSC Order U-37425, identified Meta Platforms, Inc., operating through a subsidiary called Laidley LLC, as the anchor customer behind the unprecedented capacity request. That filing laid out the need for multiple new gas units and high-voltage lines to connect the rural site to the regional grid.
The terms evolved significantly between the initial proposal and the final agreement. A revised deal announced in March 2026 requires Meta to pay the full cost of service for the planned hyperscale facility, according to subsequent coverage of the arrangement. As summarized by Reuters, that revision means Meta will shoulder the full revenue requirement associated with the new generation, transmission, and related infrastructure, rather than relying on general rate increases to spread costs across Entergy’s broader customer base.
Behind the scenes, state officials and company representatives coordinated closely as the deal took shape. Communications routed through Louisiana’s state systems, including official government email channels, show how economic development staff, regulators, and Entergy worked to align permitting timelines with Meta’s aggressive construction schedule. The resulting package reflects both the state’s eagerness to land a marquee tech investment and the utility’s need to secure long-term cost recovery.
Ratepayer Risk and Exit Scenarios
The central tension in this deal is not the size of the investment but who gets stuck with the tab if things go wrong. The Associated Press reported that the roughly $3 billion electricity upgrade sparked by Meta’s data center raised direct questions about cost responsibility for Entergy’s existing customers. Meta’s commitment to fund about half the construction cost over 15 years in the original structure provided some protection, but it still left substantial exposure on the utility side.
The revised full-cost-of-service framework is meant to address that imbalance by tying the new assets’ revenue recovery directly to Meta’s presence. In theory, if the data center operates at the planned scale for the duration of the contract, other ratepayers should see limited impact from the new plants and transmission lines. However, the long life of gas infrastructure (often 30 years or more) extends well beyond the 15-year funding horizon that has been publicly discussed.
Confidentiality provisions in the Entergy-Meta agreement limit public visibility into what happens if Meta scales back or exits the project before that period ends. Key questions include whether Entergy could reassign the capacity to other industrial users, how quickly such a transition could occur, and what portion of any remaining costs would be socialized across the utility’s 1.1 million customers. Consumer advocates have warned that, without clear exit protections, the seven new plants could become stranded assets on Entergy’s books if AI investment priorities shift or if data center technology becomes more energy efficient.
Regulators on the Louisiana Public Service Commission will play a decisive role in monitoring these risks over time. They retain authority over how Entergy allocates costs, sets depreciation schedules, and responds to major customer changes. Yet once the plants are built and placed into rate base, the leverage to unwind the investment is limited, making the initial approval process especially consequential.
Gas Plants vs. Clean Energy Pledges
The governor’s announcement framed the project partly in green terms, stating that Meta would match its electricity use with 100% clean and renewable energy and would work with Entergy to bring renewable generation to the region. Yet the infrastructure Meta is actually funding consists entirely of natural gas-fired plants, which will emit carbon dioxide for decades.
These two claims are not necessarily contradictory, but the gap between them deserves scrutiny. Tech companies routinely “match” fossil fuel consumption with renewable energy credits or power purchase agreements for wind and solar projects located elsewhere on the grid. That accounting approach allows firms to claim carbon-neutral operations on paper without directly reducing emissions from the specific gas plants that power their facilities.
In Louisiana, where renewable generation still represents a modest share of the overall energy mix, the practical effect is that Meta’s data center will run primarily on natural gas while the company purchases offsets or contracts for remote renewables that may do little to decarbonize the local grid. Environmental groups argue that this kind of bookkeeping risks locking in fossil fuel dependence at a moment when the power sector needs to be cutting emissions rapidly.
This tension is not unique to Meta. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have all faced criticism for pairing ambitious clean energy pledges with real-world reliance on fossil fuels to power their AI operations. What makes the Louisiana deal distinctive is the sheer volume of new gas capacity, more than 5,200 megawatts, being built specifically to support one company’s workloads. That level of commitment to gas generation could shape Louisiana’s energy profile for 30 years or more, well past the timeline climate scientists say is necessary for deep emissions cuts.
Supporters of the project counter that modern combined-cycle gas plants are more efficient and less carbon-intensive than older coal units and that firm, dispatchable power is essential to keep a massive AI data center online during heat waves, storms, or periods of low wind and solar output. They also note that Entergy and state officials have left the door open to adding renewable resources over time, potentially using the new transmission lines to connect future wind or solar projects.
For now, though, the Louisiana buildout underscores a broader reality of the AI boom: even as tech companies trumpet clean energy ambitions, the race to deploy ever-larger models and data centers is driving a parallel surge in fossil fuel infrastructure. Whether Meta’s arrangement with Entergy becomes a template for future AI hubs, or a cautionary tale about long-lived gas investments, will depend on how regulators manage risk, how quickly renewables scale in the region, and whether the promised economic gains materialize for the communities hosting this new wave of energy-intensive computing.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
