Entergy breaks ground on power facility for giant Meta data center

By Wesley Muller
Contributing Writer

(lailluminator.com) — Entergy Louisiana began construction Monday on a pair of gas power plants that will generate electricity for what will be the world’s largest data center.

Entergy Corp., the largest investor-owned utility company in the state, announced it broke ground on its Franklin Farms Power Station project in Richland Parish. The company disseminated a photo from the groundbreaking ceremony showing a group of politicians, regulators and corporate executives digging into a box of sand at the construction site.

The facility will power a massive $27 billion data center Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is building. It will feature two natural gas-powered plants able to generate about 1,500 megawatts of electricity, many times more than what the sparsely populated farming community of Richland Parish consumes.

Proposed less than a year ago, the fast-paced power project received expedited approval from the Louisiana Public Service Commission in August. New power plants of similar type typically go through several years of planning and hearings before construction begins.

The new power plant complex is being built specifically for the data center, though it will be connected to the larger electric grid and could supply power to other customers.

Construction on the data center itself is also underway, bringing loads of new workers and traffic to the normally sleepy Richland Parish.

The Franklin Farms project, which is expected to come online in late 2028, is not the only power station Entergy is building for the data center. Entergy plans to build a third plant at its Waterford nuclear power plant site in St. Charles Parish, with an expected operational date by the end of 2029.

Together, all three gas plants will be able to generate approximately 2,200 megawatts of electricity, which is more than twice the capacity of the entire city of New Orleans, according to the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

“These facilities represent the next step in Entergy Louisiana’s long-term strategy to modernize our generation fleet and deliver reliable, cost-effective power to our customers,” Entergy Louisiana CEO Phillip May said in a news release. “By investing in efficient technologies and robust infrastructure, we’re ensuring that Louisiana remains a competitive, attractive place to live, work, and do business both today and well into the future.”

This article originally published in the December 8, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.