Louisiana’s $3B power upgrade for Meta project raises questions about who should pay

Holly Ridge, La. – In a rural corner of Louisiana, Meta built one of the largest data centers in the world, a giant of 10 billion dollars as large as 70 football fields that will consume more power in a day than the whole city of New Orleans at the top of the summer.

Although the colossal project is impossible to miss in the parish of Richland, an agricultural community of 20,000 residents, everything is not visible, including the quantity of social media giant will pay more than $ 3 billion in new electric infrastructure necessary to feed the installation.

Drawers have warned that in a hurry to capitalize on the BOMOM of the IA -focused data center, some states allow massive technology companies to lead expensive infrastructure projects with limited surveillance.

Mississippi legislators have enabled Amazon to bypass the regulatory approval of energy infrastructure to serve two data centers which it spends $ 10 billion to build. In Indiana, a public service offers a subsidiary focused on the data center which operates outside the normal state regulations. And while Louisiana says that it has added consumer guarantees, it is lagging behind other states in its efforts to isolate regular electricity consumers of costs linked to the data center.

Mandy Deroche, lawyer for the Earthjustice environment defense group, says that there is less transparency due to the confidentiality agreements and precipitated approvals.

“You cannot follow the facts, you cannot follow the advantages or negative impacts that could come to the service area or to the community,” said Deroche.

Under a contract with META, the Entergy electricity company agreed to build three gas factories that would produce 2,262 megawatts – equivalent to a fifth of the current food in Entergy in Louisiana. The Public Service Commission approved Meta’s infrastructure plan in August after Tergy agreed to strengthen the protections to prevent a peak in residential prices.

However, the non-disclosure agreements hide the amount of the meta.

Consumer defenders tried but did not have to force Meta to provide oath testimonies, to submit to discovery and to face a counter-examination during a regulatory examination. The regulators examined the Meta contract with Entergy, but were prohibited from revealing the details.

Meta did not address the AD issues on transparency, while the Louisiana and Entergy Economic Development Agency say that the non-disclosure agreements are standard to protect sensitive commercial data.

Davante Lewis – The only one of the five commissioners of the public service to vote against the plan – said that he still did not know how much electricity the center will use, if the gas factories are the most economical option or if it will create the 500 promised jobs.

“There is certain information that we should know and that we must know, but we do not have,” said Lewis.

In addition, the meta is exempt from paying the sales tax under Louisiana law in 2024 that the State recognizes could lead to “tens of millions of dollars or more each year” in the loss of income.

Meta has agreed to finance about half of the cost of building power plants over 15 years, including cost -effects, but not maintenance and exploitation, said Logan Burke, Executive Director of Affordable Energy, a consumer defense group.

The public service committee Jean-Paul Coussan insists that there will be a “very little” impact on taxpayers.

But childcare dogs warn that Meta may withdraw or not renew his contract, leaving the public to pay power plants during the rest of their life of 30 years, and all GRID users should help pay the transmission line of $ 550 million in the service of Meta’s ease.

Ari Peskoe, director of the Harvard University law initiative, said that technological companies should be required to pay “every penny so that the public does not hold the bag”.

Elsewhere, technological companies do not receive such latitude. More than a dozen states have taken measures to protect households and commercial taxpayers to pay the increase in electricity costs linked to energy -eagerly energy data centers.

The Pennsylvania Public Services Commission writes a model rate structure to isolate customers of the cost increase in data centers. New Jersey’s public services regulators are studying whether the data centers cause “unreasonable” costs for other users. Oregon has adopted legislation this year by ordering public services regulators to develop new power rates and probably higher for data centers.

And in June, Texas implemented what it calls a law of “Kill Switch” empowering network operators to order data centers to reduce their electrical load during emergencies.

Some residents of the parish of Richland fear a cycle of boom and punch once the construction ends. Others expect a boost in the financing of schools and health care. Meta said it was planning to invest in 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy in Louisiana and $ 200 million in water infrastructure in the parish of Richland.

“We do not come from a rich parish and money is essential,” said Trae Banks, who manages a dry partition company that has tripled since the arrival of Meta.

In the neighboring city of Delhi, the mayor Jesse Washington thinks that the data center will possibly have a positive impact on his 2,600 community.

But for the moment, frustrating construction trafficking residents and real estate prices soar while developers are trying to house thousands of construction workers. More than a dozen low-income families have been expelled from a roller park, the owners of which build housing for incoming meta-travelers, says Washington.

“We have a lot of worried people – they have put difficulty in many people in certain areas here,” said the mayor. “I just want to see Delhi people enjoy it.”

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Brook reported to New Orleans.

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Brook is a member of the body for the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national services program that places journalists from local editorial rooms to account for undercurrent issues.