Louisiana Approves 2.26 GW of New Gas Plants for Meta's Hyperion

Louisiana has made one of the clearest bets yet that AI data centers will be powered, at least at first, by new gas plants. On August 20, 2025, the Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) approved an agreement allowing Entergy Louisiana to build three new combined-cycle gas turbine plants and a package of transmission projects tied to Meta's planned data center in Richland Parish. The three plants have a combined capacity of about 2.26 GW, according to Data Center Dynamics.

Two of the plants will be built in Richland Parish and are expected to come online in late 2028. The third will be built at Entergy Louisiana's existing Waterford site in St. Charles Parish, with an expected operating date by the end of 2029. Meta's Richland Parish campus, first announced in 2024, is described by Entergy as one of the largest economic development initiatives in Louisiana's history. Data Center Dynamics describes it as a planned 2 GW data center.

Entergy plans several new transmission lines, including a $1.2 billion, 100-mile 500 kV project scheduled for completion in December 2026, according to Data Center Dynamics. Entergy officials estimated that the project would increase the average customer's bill by about $1, Data Center Dynamics reported. Consumer groups, including the Alliance for Affordable Energy, had urged the commission to delay the vote, arguing that the public needed more time to assess the impact on bills. The structure matters because gas plants have lives of several decades, while data center contracts are typically much shorter.

If the anchor customer reduces its load or leaves before the plants are paid off, the remaining costs could fall on other customers unless the contracts provide otherwise. Combined-cycle gas plants are the default choice for utilities that need large amounts of firm power on a timeline of three to four years. Louisiana is not part of a competitive capacity market in the way that the PJM states are.