{"id":550217,"date":"2026-03-28T10:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/550217\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T10:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:15:10","slug":"meta-orders-10-gas-power-plants-for-hyperion-ai-campus-in-louisiana-over-triple-the-initial-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/550217\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta orders 10 gas power plants for Hyperion AI campus in Louisiana\u2014over triple the initial plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta<\/a> will pay for a total of 10 gas-fired power plants\u2014enough to power more than 5 million homes\u2014to electrify its rapidly expanding plans for its massive AI data center complex in<\/a> northeastern Louisiana, dubbed Hyperion.<\/p>\n

Meta\u2019s agreement with New Orleans\u2013based Entergy<\/a>, announced March 27, is to build and finance seven new power plants in Louisiana. That comes on top of plans approved last year to build three gas power plants for the sprawling AI hub. The 10 power plants with 7.5 gigawatts of capacity would represent a more than 30% increase to Louisiana\u2019s entire grid capacity, not even counting up to 2.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, that Meta also agreed to help fund.<\/p>\n

Meta initially announced plans for a<\/a> $10 billion investment in December 2024 for a 2,250-acre data center campus in northeastern Louisiana in rural Richland Parish. But Meta recently, and quietly, acquired an additional 1,400 acres, as Fortune reported in February<\/a>. In October 2025, Meta entered a joint venture with funds managed by Blue Owl Capital to finance, build, and operate the Hyperion campus with up to $27 billion in total development costs, seemingly ensuring the mega-campus will serve as a long-term, multiphase AI hub.<\/p>\n

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said Hyperion would cover a \u201csignificant part of the footprint of Manhattan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Richland Parish data center serves as a symbol of the ambition and scale of next-generation AI infrastructure,\u201d said Rachel Peterson, Meta vice president for data centers, in a statement. \u201cWe are building foundations for the future of AI innovation right here in the United States. We\u2019ve been working closely with Entergy since early on-site planning to ensure our power needs are met and, importantly, so that Entergy\u2019s other consumers aren\u2019t paying our costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Louisiana Public Service Commission will still need to approve the projects. The previous three power plants received regulatory authorization last year.<\/p>\n

Entergy\u2019s stock jumped 7% on March 27, lifting its market cap to a new record high of about $50 billion. The stock has risen almost 125% in two years.<\/p>\n

Entergy is emphasizing that Meta is paying for the projects, rather than shifting the costs to other ratepayers. Entergy argues that the deals will save Louisiana taxpayers billions of dollars over several years.<\/p>\n

The 10 power plants are estimated to cost nearly $11 billion. Critics contend ratepayers could be stuck with the bill after 15 years, which is the length of the contractual terms, if Meta no longer requires so much power after that span.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis agreement reflects what\u2019s possible when strong partners align around long-term growth and value,\u201d said Phillip May, president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, in a statement. \u201cWorking with our customers, regulators, and state leaders, we are making targeted investments that strengthen reliability, support economic development, and deliver meaningful benefits to customers\u2014all while keeping energy rates affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta will pay for a total of 10 gas-fired power plants\u2014enough to power more than 5 million homes\u2014to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,1282,26862,5568],"class_list":{"0":"post-550217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-meta","10":"tag-natural-gas","11":"tag-power"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}