Meta bought 1 GW of solar this week

Meta has recently signed three solar power deals totaling nearly 1 gigawatt (GW), bringing its total solar capacity purchases this year to over 3 GW. These agreements include a 600-megawatt (MW) deal for a solar farm near Lubbock, Texas, and two separate deals in Louisiana for 385 MW combined. The Texas project, expected to begin operations in 2027, will feed power into the local grid to offset Meta’s data center electricity use, while the Louisiana deals involve purchasing environmental attribute certificates (EACs) to offset carbon emissions from more carbon-intensive power sources. EACs, also known as renewable energy certificates, were initially designed to encourage renewable energy development by allowing companies to pay extra to offset emissions when renewables were more expensive than fossil fuels. However, with the significant drop in solar and wind costs, the effectiveness of EACs in driving new renewable capacity is now questioned. Experts argue that companies aiming to truly offset their increased energy use