Ohio Approves a Third Off-Grid Gas Plant for Meta's New Albany Campus

The Ohio Power Siting Board on June 26 approved construction of a 250 MW natural gas plant in Licking County that will serve a single customer: a data center owned by Sidecat LLC, an affiliate of Meta Platforms. The Socrates the Younger Power Generation Facility will operate behind the meter and will not be physically connected to the electric grid, the board said. Will-Power OH will build and operate the new plant on 109 acres at the southwest corner of Clover Valley Road and Harrison Road NW in New Albany.

The project includes 116 MW of battery storage to handle fluctuations in demand and to cover unplanned outages, according to the board. The STY site covers 109 acres, while Williams describes each of the two Socrates sites as spanning roughly 20 acres. The battery component is the main design change from the original Socrates applications, and Williams has since filed battery storage amendments for both Socrates sites as well. A data center running on an island has no grid to lean on when a turbine trips, so storage serves as the immediate backup that a utility connection would normally provide.

Data Center Dynamics reported at the time that the full two-site build, Socrates South and North, was expected to cost about $1.6 billion. The equipment list shows how these plants differ from a utility combined-cycle station. Power Engineering reported that the design uses Solar Turbines Titan 250 and PGM 130 units, Siemens Energy SGT400 turbines and Caterpillar 3520 engines. For Williams, which says it handles about a third of the natural gas used in the United States each day, the Socrates projects are a move from moving gas to selling electricity.

Williams' project page now lists further facilities beyond the original pair, including the STY plant and another named Neo, as well as a pipeline project named Aristotle South. The first test is whether Socrates South and North reach service on schedule in the second half of 2026.