Entergy Louisiana broke ground on a chilly Monday morning of this week, December 1, 2025, on two of the three new power plants that will eventually keep Meta’s $10 billion AI-optimized data center up and running in North Louisiana, once the project is completed. Besides the Franklin Farms Power Station 1 & 2 in Rayville, where Monday’s groundbreaking took place, construction is already underway on the third power plant, known as the Meta Smalling substation in Richland Parish.
Behind the scenes, a new task force has begun work to make sure Louisiana has enough power to provide electricity for everyone for the coming surge in power needs – for public and private customers, not to mention the very real prospect of future data centers on the way, including the one now proposed for Shreveport. As the Louisiana Radio Network reports, State Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, says the task force is focused on making sure Louisiana citizens get the power they need, and that such a process begins with asking core questions to get right to the heart of the issue: “As these data centers come on and require an enormous amount of power, if those companies are going to provide that power, is it going to draw from Louisiana’s current businesses?”
Henry says the task force will look into concerns, for example, from environmental groups and others that it will be Entergy Louisiana customers who may ultimately pay higher utility rates in general with the arrival of more data centers coming into the state and using up resources like water and energy from the power grid intended for people living in Louisiana. When it comes to the calculus, or cost-benefit ratio, as it were, for Meta’s AI-optimized data center - on the positive side of the ledger you can also add the fact that economic forecasters expect the project will create more than 500+ operational jobs (once completed) and employ more than 5,000 workers during construction, another projected 1,000+ indirect jobs to the economy, along with $200 million in local infrastructure improvements, including roads and infrastructure. That’s all according research results provided by Louisiana Economic Development (LED).
Entergy stated that Meta is paying for the state-of-the-art generation facilities, which the utility company estimates will deliver more than $650 million in customer savings over the next 15 years. It will, however, examine claims such as these carefully as part of the task force, to verify the accuracy of such statements, and others. Then the task force must produce their findings to the Louisiana Senate by March 1, 2026. As Henry concluded, “We’ll have a good review of what the rules and regulations are, make sure that Louisiana is prepared to grow like we want it to grow. And if not, we’ll make some adjustments.”
