Entergy has proposed building a $3.2 billion natural gas plant in northeast Louisiana to power an adjacent data center.
According to filings with the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC), Entergy plans to construct the 1.5GW gas plant with an undisclosed data center operator on a 1,400-acre site called Franklin Farms, which the state owns.
Details on the data center are limited; however, according to the Louisiana Illuminator, Entergy has filed numerous pages of redacted documents with state regulators.
Entergy has described the development as a “game changer” in the region and is now seeking approval from the Louisiana PSC to construct the natural gas plant within 10 months.
To mitigate concerns, the data center operator is working with Entergy to build or acquire 1.5GW of solar power elsewhere to offset the plant's emissions. In addition, the company is expected to contribute to a carbon capture and storage project at Entergy Louisiana’s new Lake Charles 994MW gas power plant.
Entergy reported it considered wind and solar alternatives to power the site but decided that it would have to build a natural gas plant regardless to provide backup generation.
The decision is part of a broader move by data center companies to secure natural gas to power their operations. Several US utilities have indicated that fossil fuels are increasingly being considered a viable energy source due to the insatiable energy demand of data centers.
Last week, Clair Moeller, president and chief operating officer of US grid operator Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), reported that data centers could potentially pay for gas-fired generation to power their facilities in the short term as a bridging mechanism to low carbon energy sources.
In early November, AltaGas CEO Vern Yu said its subsidiary Washington Gas was in discussions with customers about using the fossil fuel as a primary power source. According to Yu, the discussions were mainly driven by regional data center growth.
An October report from S&P Global found that demand for natural gas to support data centers could reach three to six billion cubic feet per day as the industry struggles to find power for an AI buildout.
