A natural gas power plant set to provide behind-the-meter power to a Meta data center in New Albany, Ohio, has been approved for construction.

The 200MW Socrates South Power Generation Project was approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) on Monday (June 9).

Midstream natural gas firm, Williams & Co. subsidiary Will-Power, will construct and operate the plant.

The power plant will be located along the north side of Morse Road in the Licking County portion of New Albany and will be directly supplied by two 24-inch pipelines, which will be detailed in separate applications to the OPSB.

The plant is expected to cost approximately $1.6 billion to construct and, at full build-out, will comprise two generation sites, each with a capacity of 200MW. In addition to the power plant, Williams also plans to construct an electrical substation to power the adjacent data center. Construction on the power plant is slated to commence in Q3 2025, with an estimated completion date in Q3 2026.

The power generated will directly supply a data center under construction on a 740-acre industrial campus within the New Albany International Business Park. According to the filing, the facility is being constructed by Sidecat LLC, an affiliate of Meta.

Meta has had a presence at the business park since 2017 and launched a data center campus there in 2020. In April 2022, the company reported that it was set to expand the site, adding two buildings totalling around 1 million sq ft (92,900 sqm)

Further details on the data center were not immediately available. DCD has reached out to Meta for further information.

New Albany is home to several major data center developments, with Microsoft, AWS, and Google all with a presence.

Earlier this year, EdgeConneX submitted a proposal to construct a 120MW natural gas power plant to serve a planned data center at the state's New Albany International Business Park. The plant is expected to power the data center behind-the-meter.