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. The commission also authorized Entergy to procure up to 1,500 MW of solar resources through an expedited certification process.
The scale of the project
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. To put that in context, Entergy Louisiana serves more than 1.1 million customers in 58 parishes. A single site drawing 2 GW would be a large share of the utility's total load.
The grid work is substantial. 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. It will also build two substations, six customer-owned substations and eight new 230 kV transmission lines. Entergy has already broken ground on a key substation for the facility.
Who pays
The central question in the proceeding was who bears the cost. Entergy's position is that the data center customer covers its share. "Importantly, Meta is paying its share of the costs for the infrastructure needed to support its operations, ensuring that other customers are protected from those expenses," said Entergy Louisiana's president and chief executive, Phillip May.
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. That is the same risk that has driven regulators in Ohio and Georgia to adopt minimum bills, long contract terms and collateral requirements for large loads.
Why gas
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. They can run around the clock, matching the flat demand profile of a data center, and Louisiana sits close to abundant gas from the Haynesville and Gulf Coast pipeline networks.
Solar is part of the package but on different terms. The authorization to procure up to 1,500 MW of solar through an expedited process is intended, in Entergy's words, to help "large-scale customers meet their renewable energy and sustainability commitments." Hyperscalers including Meta have set goals to match their electricity use with clean energy, and a data center powered mainly by new gas plants sits uneasily with those goals unless it is paired with renewable procurement.
The regional picture
Louisiana is not part of a competitive capacity market in the way that the PJM states are. Entergy Louisiana is a vertically integrated utility within the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and the state commission decides what it builds. That gives large customers and utilities a more direct path to new generation: a utility can propose dedicated plants, negotiate cost sharing with the customer and seek approval in a single proceeding.
That model is one reason large data center projects have gravitated toward the South. It offers speed and certainty, at the cost of concentrating risk in the regulated utility's rate base. The Louisiana commission's approval shows that regulators there are willing to accept that trade-off for a project of this size.
The gas demand angle
Three combined-cycle plants totaling 2.26 GW will be substantial gas consumers. Energy Information Administration data show that US gas-fired plants in the utility and independent power sectors averaged a heat rate of 7,721 Btu per kWh in 2023. At that rate, 2.26 GW running at full output around the clock would burn about 419,000 million British thermal units a day, roughly 0.4 billion cubic feet. Modern combined-cycle units are more efficient than the fleet average, and the plants will not always run flat out, so actual use would be lower, but the order of magnitude is clear. Louisiana is also home to a large share of the country's LNG export capacity, and several new export projects are seeking final investment decisions. Both data center power and LNG exports will draw on the same regional gas supply and pipeline network. For now, US gas production is growing fast enough to supply both, but the overlap is likely to become a more visible part of Louisiana's energy planning.
A template for others
Utilities across the South are watching the Louisiana case. It combines three elements that other states are likely to copy: dedicated new generation sized to a single customer, a cost-sharing agreement in which the customer pays for the infrastructure it needs, and a parallel clean energy procurement to meet the customer's sustainability goals. The model works best where a vertically integrated utility can plan generation and transmission together, and where a regulator is willing to approve large investments quickly.
What to watch
The milestones are clear. The 500 kV line is due by December 2026, two plants by late 2028 and the Waterford plant by the end of 2029. The solar procurement will show how much clean energy is paired with the campus. And the details of Meta's contract with Entergy, including its term and any minimum payment obligations, will determine how well other customers are protected if the data center's needs change.