Louisiana Public Service Commission

Ivan Taron, writing in Tech Thought Leaders.

Meta's Hyperion campus in Richland Parish will draw 4,500 megawatts, and the number became public only when the chief executive of Entergy Louisiana said it under questioning at a Louisiana Public Service Commission hearing on October 7th.

That is more than four times the peak demand of New Orleans, at around 1,100 megawatts, and about twice what every other Entergy Louisiana customer in the state uses.

4,500 megawatts for one metacampus.

This week, we did our first live recorded episode of The Hum in Brooklyn at New York Climate Week.

I talked to three elected officials deep in the work of regulating AI data centers, Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, Georgia Public Service Commissioner Peter Hubbard, and New York State Rep Emily Gallagher.

We talked about the challenges of finding information about proposed projects, the pressures elected officials face from industry, and what they see coming next in their communities.

[upbeat music] All right.

But there are skeptics, especially given how fast the fortunes of the AI industry are changing.

In four years, is Mark Zuckerberg still going to be interested in this? Or is he going to throw in the towel? Asks Paul Arbaje, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has been advocating, largely unsuccessfully, for the Louisiana Public Service Commission to provide more transparency around the data center and its financing.

Even if the 20-year deal holds, consumer advocates are worried that Meta or its partners won't fully cover all the costs, including those associated with operating and maintaining the power plants, and those additional costs that could be passed on to residential ratepayers.

What's more, says Logan Burke, the executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, if Meta doesn't end up needing as much power as Entergy planned – these projections are not public – consumers could be left paying for the surplus produced by the plants.