How the ‘Icy Apocalypse’ raises more questions about the largest Metadata Center project

Donna Collins lives about 20 miles from where Meta’s largest data center is being built, in a house where her family has lived for five generations. The construction has thrown the small farming community in north Louisiana into the spotlight as a prominent example of how the infrastructure behind generative AI can impact nearby residents.

For Collins, this place is “a little piece of heaven.” “It’s everything I’ve ever known as home. It’s quiet. It’s rustic. It’s beautiful,” she says. “We can’t imagine the changes coming.”

The area was particularly… Hard blow By the last The cold wave that caused a power outage For hundreds of thousands of Americans. Extremely cold temperatures Raising electricity prices – In addition to questions about the extent to which power networks are prepared to face future disasters while they are exposed to increasing pressure from data centers. Louisiana has repeatedly rebuilt from one storm after another, but now community members and advocates want assurances that power-hungry data centers won’t drive up costs.

“We’re very nervous,” Collins says. “When the wind blows, the power goes out here in a lot of these remote areas. We live in an area where power is kind of uncertain as it is.”

The final “ice apocalypse,” as Collins described it, arrived with a winter storm on January 24. And the storm was just the beginning – Forecasters have warned Continued freezing temperatures will allow ice to accumulate on trees and power infrastructure across much of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The weight of this ice can cause power lines to collapse or become entangled in fallen branches.

By February 5, local utility Entergy Louisiana said it had done so Power recovery completed To approximately 130,000 affected customers. Collins says her home, which is served by an electric cooperative, was without power for four days. She also owns a property she uses as an Airbnb, serviced by Entergy, that lost power for a few days.

Meta may be Entergy’s most controversial new client in the region. The company is building three new gas plants to provide enough electricity for Meta’s $27 billion artificial intelligence data center in Richland Parish. The facility is expected to be used Three times the electricity Annually as the city of New Orleans. A Meta data center and two gas plants are under construction, in addition to the data center It is scheduled to be completed in 2030. It is too early for them to have an impact on the power grid during this storm.

But consumer advocates are concerned about whether residents might have to shoulder higher bills as a result of higher demand for electricity and new infrastructure being built for Meta, and they are already pushing for stronger protections. Gas prices rose as wells froze while The cold snap has increased demand for fuel Used in heating and electricity. In the coming months, these costs will increase They are more likely to appear on residents’ utility bills. Proponents worry that price hikes could be higher as more power-hungry data centers used in generative AI connect to the grid.

“In a world where new gas-fired power plants (serving META) come online, that will put additional upward pressure on the cost of gas, and therefore on the cost of home heating and the cost of electricity in the larger market,” says Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy (AAE). Edge.

Entergy did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement to edge, “We have worked closely with Entergy to provide additional protection to customers, which expects that electricity payments for the Richland Parish data center will continue,” said Ashley Settle, a Meta spokesperson. Reduce customer costs by upgrading each network and storm fees of about 10%, resulting in savings for customers of $650 million over 15 years.

But while Meta has agreed to pay 15 years of capital costs for the three new power plants, Burke says that picture is incomplete. There are more costs associated – Modernization of transportation linesFor example, Burke remains concerned about increased demand for gas and electricity leading to increased utility bills for other customers.

Earlier this month, Burke’s organization and the Union of Concerned Scientists also submitted an application answer For network stability analysis Entergy sued, alleging it “failed to adequately assess the reliability risks of the data center service.” Specifically, they call on utilities to re-analyze to more comprehensively assess what would happen to the grid if there was a major disruption such as a transmission line or power plant failure, as the state has already seen during major storms.

“People in north Louisiana are already facing a lot of outages, and there’s this new (project) that’s being rushed through that process, and it hasn’t been adequately studied in terms of the impact on the grid,” says Paul Arbagi, an energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It will likely cause more disruption and cause more damage if we don’t take this seriously enough.”

Across the United States, there is local opposition to other data center projects — often driven by concerns about how much electricity and water they will use — It led to delays and cancellations. In north Louisiana, Collins says residents are concerned about rising property costs, taxes and rents as well.

Meta moves to a community where the landscape has been defined by farmland for generations. Collins hopes the company will deliver on its pledge to support local vocational training and employment as local farmers find it difficult to earn a living. She has a nephew who is a farmer and now works at the Meta construction site.
“I’m not against progress,” she says. “But, you know…those of us who have lived here our whole lives have to worry about our water supply, the cost of electricity, the value of our property and taxes. These are all big concerns because we’re going to pay the price.”