Meta signed three deals this week to procure nearly one gigawatt of solar power as it races to power its ambitious AI goals. These new agreements bring Meta’s total solar purchases to over three gigawatts of capacity this year. Solar power is inexpensive and quick to build, making it a go-to power source for tech companies as their data center fleets expand.
The company announced two agreements in Louisiana where it will buy the environmental attributes from a combined 385 megawatts of electricity. Both of these projects are expected to be completed in two years.
These follow a larger deal announced on Monday, in which Meta bought 600 megawatts from a massive solar farm near Lubbock, Texas. That project is also scheduled to start commercial operations in 2027.
While the Texas power plant will not connect directly to Meta data centers, it will feed electricity into the local grid, offsetting power used by the facilities. The Louisiana deals, however, involve purchasing certificates that allow Meta to offset its carbon-intensive power sources.
Such environmental attribute certificates, sometimes called renewable energy certificates, have been criticized by experts for obscuring the true carbon footprint of tech companies’ operations. This footprint has grown significantly as increased AI use drives up electricity demand.
These certificates were introduced years ago when renewables were more costly than fossil fuel generators. They allowed anyone to buy the electricity, while giving companies an option to pay extra to offset their own emissions and cover the higher costs of renewable power. This system helped encourage developers to build more renewable projects.
However, the cost of new solar and wind power has dropped dramatically since then. Renewables now often undercut new fossil fuel power and sometimes even existing coal and natural gas plants. As a result, environmental attribute certificates no longer provide the same incentive as before, and experts question how much additional renewable power they actually stimulate. If companies truly want to offset their new energy use from AI, experts argue they should be encouraging developers to build new renewable capacity.