Meta has signed three new contracts to purchase nearly 1 gigawatt of solar power to power its AI operations, bringing the company’s total solar purchases to more than 3 gigawatts by 2025.
Solar power has become a popular energy source for technology companies expanding their data centers because it can be built both cheaply and quickly.
Meta announced two new agreements in Louisiana yesterday. Under the agreements, the company will purchase a total of 385 megawatts of Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs). Both projects are expected to be completed within two years.
Just days earlier, on Monday, Meta signed a larger agreement to purchase 600 megawatts of power from a giant solar farm near Lubbock, Texas, which is expected to begin commercial operation in 2027.
The Texas power plant, while not directly connected to Meta’s data centers, will offset the company’s energy consumption by feeding electricity into the local power grid. The Louisiana projects, meanwhile, will use renewable energy certificates (EACs) to offset the impact of carbon-intensive energy sources.
But experts say these certificates don’t fully reflect the true carbon footprint of tech companies. EACs were first introduced when renewable energy was expensive, allowing companies to pay extra to offset their emissions, incentivizing the development of new green energy projects.
But the cost of solar and wind power has fallen significantly, sometimes even cheaper than traditional energy sources like coal and gas. That’s why EACs are said to be less effective than they once were and provide no real incentive to build new renewable energy capacity.
Experts believe that if companies really want to offset the growing energy demand of artificial intelligence technologies, they should directly support the construction of new renewable energy projects.
