Entergy Louisiana has broken ground on two combined-cycle combustion turbine generation facilities set to power Meta’s planned 2GW hyperscale campus in Richland Parish, northeast Louisiana.

The Franklin Farms Power Station will have a combined capacity of approximately 1.5GW of natural gas generation. According to Entergy, the facilities will “feature modern, highly efficient technology that uses less fuel to produce more power, resulting in lower emissions and improved system reliability.”

The utility plans to construct three generation facilities in total, with the first two expected to come online in late 2028. The third facility will be built at Entergy Louisiana’s existing Waterford site in St. Charles Parish, with a planned operational date by the end of 2029. In total, the three plants are expected to have a combined capacity of 2.26GW.

"These facilities represent the next step in Entergy Louisiana's long-term strategy to modernize our generation fleet and deliver reliable, cost-effective power to our customers," said Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO. "By investing in efficient technologies and robust infrastructure, we're ensuring that Louisiana remains a competitive, attractive place to live, work, and do business both today and well into the future."

In addition to the generation facilities, Entergy Louisiana will build several new transmission facilities to serve the data center. In August, Entergy announced that it was set to construct a $1.2 billion 100-mile 500kV transmission project to support the project. The utility will also construct two substations, six customer-owned substations, and eight new 230kV transmission lines.

The data center was announced late last year. Expected to cost approximately $10bn, the project will span more than four million sq ft (371,610 sqm). Renderings suggest up to nine buildings are planned.

In its latest earnings report, the utility reported that it reached a stipulated settlement with the Louisiana Public Service Commission staff and a number of parties recommending approval of its request to invest in assets to support adding the data center to its system.

The data center had been opposed by two environmental groups, which filed motions earlier this year to block a utility connection between the data center and Entergy. In the motion, the groups contended that Entergy did not follow the correct procedure when proposing the new gas-fired plants, which could result in high costs for ratepayers.

Facebook parent company Meta has offered to offset most of the costs for Entergy's customers, with the company set to pay the full annual revenue for the plants for 15 years. However, the groups contended that Entergy did not offer the most cost-effective option for ratepayers.

Meta is one of the first hyperscalers to announce a large-scale campus in the Pelican State. At present, the state has 23 operational facilities.