US solar developer Silicon Ranch has partnered with South Carolina's Central Electric Power Cooperative to develop a 100MW solar farm that will serve Meta’s first data center in South Carolina.

Meta’s commitment to purchase the environmental attributes, combined with Central’s offtake, will provide Silicon Ranch with the demand certainty needed to construct the Orangeburg County solar farm. 

Plans for the data center first surfaced last August. The data center, currently under construction, is located in the Sage Mill Industrial Park near Graniteville, Aiken County. When constructed, it will span 715,000 sq ft (66,425 sqm) and will be optimized for AI workloads. Meta said it will invest approximately $800 million in constructing the facility, with plans for at least two data center buildings. The facility is expected to come online in 2027, with the solar farm slated for operations in the same year.

“As Meta progresses construction on our data center in South Carolina, we are pleased to join our new utility partners, Central and Aiken Electric Cooperative, and our long-term trusted partner Silicon Ranch to announce this project together,” said Urvi Parekh, head of Global Energy at Meta. “We’re grateful to Central for supporting our energy goals in South Carolina and thrilled to expand our relationship with Silicon Ranch, which shares our commitment to have a positive impact in the communities where we locate.”

Construction of the solar farm is expected to cost more than $100m. Silicon Ranch will fund, build, own, and operate the facility in coordination with the system balancing authority, Santee Cooper. Central Electric will subsequently purchase the facility’s output and serve the Meta data center via Aiken Electric Cooperative, one of its 19 member cooperatives.

“Our expanded partnership with Silicon Ranch supports our ability to deliver toward this mission, and we are thrilled to help welcome Meta to South Carolina,” said Rob Hochstetler, president and CEO of Central Electric Power Cooperative.

The agreement builds on a previous agreement between Meta and Silicon Ranch, signed back in 2022. The deal saw Meta agree to offtake 720MW of power from seven new solar projects in Georgia and Tennessee.

Meta has already signed several renewable supply agreements to power its US operations during 2025. Included were deals in Texas, Ohio, and Kansas, which are a mix of Environmental Attribute Purchase Agreements and Power Purchase Agreements.