Louisiana utility regulators sided with Meta on Wednesday, overturning a judge’s order that would have required the company to provide records supporting its projections for investment, permanent jobs and electricity demand at its massive Richland Parish data center, The Center Square reports.
The records had been sought by the Alliance for Affordable Energy and Union of Concerned Scientists as they challenged Entergy Louisiana’s plans to build billions of dollars in new power infrastructure to serve Meta.
Entergy is seeking approval to build seven natural-gas generators, three battery-storage projects and hundreds of miles of transmission infrastructure. Louisiana officials originally announced the Richland Parish development in 2024 as a roughly $10 billion project expected to create at least 500 permanent jobs, while Meta announced in July that its investment would exceed $50 billion, the campus would reach 5 gigawatts of computing capacity and it would provide more than 1,000 operational jobs.
Entergy argues that the project will benefit other customers and estimates its agreements with Meta will provide roughly $2.65 billion in customer savings and other benefits over 20 years, while consumer advocates question whether ratepayers would remain protected if Meta’s projected electricity needs fail to materialize or the company reduces its presence.
Meta argued that the requested records contained confidential business information and trade secrets, and both Meta and Entergy declined opportunities to testify during the contentious hearing.
With the commission’s decision, the groups challenging the project will now have to scrutinize Meta’s and Entergy’s projections without access to the underlying records the administrative law judge had ordered Meta to provide. The commission is expected to consider Entergy’s broader application in December.
The Center Square has the full story.
