Meta Hyperion Approved
Approved and under construction - a ~5 GW, ~$27B campus. Louisiana approved new Entergy natural-gas generation to serve it; ratepayer cost allocation is the live fight, not the siting.
Key facts
- Operator
- Meta
- Owner
- Meta / Blue Owl
- Tenant
- Meta
- Size
- 5,000 MW
- Location
- Richland Parish, Louisiana
- Decided
- 2026-01-01
- Stage today
- Approved
Source
read 2026-08-07
What to do next
Next step: Approved — pivot from stopping it to a binding CBA: enforceable caps on noise, water and cost, plus a community benefit.
What has happened so far (11 events)
- 2024-12-04announcement
Gov. Jeff Landry and Meta announced on December 4, 2024 that Meta will build a $10 billion AI data center on a 2,250-acre site in Richland Parish, described as Meta's largest data center, with construction continuing through 2030. · source - 2025-08-20vote
The Louisiana Public Service Commission approved Entergy Louisiana's application on August 20, 2025 to construct three new gas plants and related transmission to power Meta's Richland Parish data center, despite opposition. · source - 2025-10-16construction
Heavy construction equipment was documented at the Meta data center site in Holly Ridge, Louisiana on October 16, 2025. · source - 2025-12-01construction
Entergy Louisiana broke ground on December 1, 2025 on a pair of gas power plants at the Franklin Farms Power Station in Richland Parish to serve Meta's data center, with the complex expected operational in late 2028. · source - 2025-12-01report
In December 2025 the PSC adopted a regulatory framework aligned with Gov. Landry's 'Lightning Speed Initiative' to expedite approvals for large industrial projects; tensions between commissioners surfaced at the meeting. · source - 2026-01-01news
Campus scaled to ~5 GW and ~$27B (up from an announced $10B); Entergy's plan for ten new gas units to serve it advanced through the Louisiana PSC (early 2026). · source - 2026-01-14filing
Earthjustice filed a motion on January 14, 2026 requesting that the PSC investigate the Meta-Blue Owl financing deal's impact on ratepayer protections. · source - 2026-02-25denial
The Louisiana PSC declined on February 25, 2026 to investigate Meta's financing arrangement with Blue Owl Capital, alarming consumer and environmental groups. · source - 2026-04-15vote
The Louisiana PSC voted on April 15, 2026 to adopt a fast-track schedule for Entergy Louisiana's application to build seven additional gas plants for the Hyperion project, with a final decision scheduled for December 2026. · source - 2026-07-28announcement
Meta announced in late July 2026 that it is expanding its Hyperion data center in Richland Parish to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity at a total cost of more than $50 billion, more than double the previous $27 billion budget. · source - 2026-08-12ruling
The Louisiana PSC voted 3-1 on August 12, 2026 to reject an administrative law judge's recommendation, allowing Meta to avoid complying with subpoenas and keep Richland Parish data center details confidential. · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Louisiana DEQThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- LDEQ Electronic Document Management SystemSearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Search Richland Parish planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
- Search Richland Parish property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.
Utility & grid records
The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.
- MISO (Midwest & Gulf) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- Louisiana Public Service Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
- FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
- Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.
Federal databases
Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.
- EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 32.420, -91.760 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
- EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.
These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.
Around here
- Louisiana briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Louisiana
- AWS Caddo Parish — Caddo Parish In review
- Hut 8 / Google West Feliciana Parish — West Feliciana Parish Under construction
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Meta Hyperion”, aigridwatch.com/projects/meta-hyperion-richland-parish-la, retrieved 2026-10-11.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.
Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).