In Louisiana, a battle heats up that will pay the new power plants necessary to serve the $ 10 billion data center that the meta is built in the northeast corner of the state.
Meta announced in December the campus of the Richland parish of the 2,000 acres parish, which should be completed in 2030. The company plans to use the data center to form AI models.
Consumer defenders and climatic groups have submitted new testimonies to the Louisiana Public Service Commission on April 11, pushing the state regulator to reject a request from Meta electricity supplier to move $ 5 billion in construction costs for factories in all its customers.
Entergy Louisiana proposed to build three new natural gas power plants to serve Meta’s data centers in the state. As a public service belonging to investors, Entergy can request regulatory approval to charge its customers for the construction costs of new factories as long as it successfully shows that factories are in the public interest.
Entergy argued that the Meta data center could be “transformer” for Lousiana once built, saying that the installation could provide 300 to 500 jobs with an average salary of $ 82,000.
The testimony of lawyers and climatic groups argued that electric customers of 1.1 million public services should not have to pay the Meta power appetite bill.
Entergy did not respond to a request for comments from Business Insider. Meta refused to comment.
Beyond the $ 5 billion in cost recovery for factories, the public service plan “would put other taxpayers to risk having to absorb hundreds of millions, or even dollars, additional costs” associated with the Meta data center, said Cathy Kunkel, an energy consultant testifying on behalf of the Union of Scientists concerned.
Indeed, Meta’s power needs have increased since the great technology giant announced for the first time its plans to build an AI data center in Louisiana, adding to the service costs of Entergy.
Earlier this year, Meta provided more than two capacity gigawatts in Louisiana, according to a post of Threads from the Meta-PDG Mark Zuckerberg in January. This quantity of electricity is double what is planned at Crusoe Data Center in Abilene, Texas, considered the first site for Stargate, a joint venture of $ 500 billion between Oracle, Openai and Softbank to build AI data centers in the United States.
Since then, Meta has asked Entergy even more electricity, according to the deposits of the utility with the LPSC. The exact amount requested is unknown, as the information is accused of deposits.
Customers on the head with Meta costs are particularly risky given the uncertainties surrounding the AI electricity demand, Kunkel said. AI models could become more energy efficient in the future, or businesses could focus more on energy efficiency as a means of improving profits, she said. This could lead to the meta “which chooses to back down or leave” the project early. Recent reports according to which Amazon and Microsoft remove data center leases have contributed to unravel that the Boom of the development of AI slows down.
The demand for recovering Entergy costs attracted a wide range of “speakers” or parts who wish to weigh with an opinion before the LPSC. Even Walmart in Louisiana testified, looking for assurances that the climbing of Meta’s energy demand will not affect it and other Entergy customers in the state.
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