Meta’s Environmental Credits Help Zelestra Develop Four Texas Solar Farms Totaling 720 MW
Facebook’s parent company Meta has expanded its clean energy partnership with renewable energy developer Zelestra by signing four new Environmental Attribute Purchase Agreements (EAPAs) to develop four solar projects in Texas with a total capacity of 720 MW.
Under the EAPAs, the projects will deliver electricity into the ERCOT grid which also connects to several Meta data centers. The projects are located in Hopkins, Lamar, Lampasas, and Henderson Counties.
“We are excited to announce these solar projects with Zelestra,” said Urvi Parekh, Head of Global Energy at Meta, in a statement. “The renewable energy from these projects will support our data center operations, as well as our ongoing efforts to match our electricity usage with 100% clean and renewable energy.”
Under renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs), the end user company often does not receive that solar or wind energy directly, but it invests to help ensure the project is completed and interconnected into the main grid, thus decarbonizing the overall electricity mix somewhat. EAPAs are essentially credits allowing the customer to factor in clean energy to offset its overall electricity consumption and emissions.
Meta and Zelestra have closed on six EAPAs totalling 800 MW, including agreements for 210 MW from two solar plants in Indiana signed in April 2024. The total agreements signed will help Zelestra build over 1 GW of projects in the U.S.
Meta historically has been one of the most aggressive companies in funding utility-scale renewable energy projects. In December, the Facebook parent signed a PPA with Invenergy supplying another 760 MW of solar power into the grid, as well as another PPA earlier in the year with EDP Renewables.
Meta also is exploring partnerships with nuclear energy producers and small modular reactor startups to energize future data centers. Nuclear also is a carbon-free energy resource.
