Meta's Solar Shopping Spree Continues: Company Now Has 1.4 GW Under Contract With a Single Developer
Meta's Solar Shopping Spree Continues: Company Now Has 1.4 GW Under Contract With a Single Developer
Meta has signed yet another solar power purchase agreement, this time with renewable energy developer Zelestra for the 180-megawatt Palmera Solar Plant in Freestone County, Texas. The deal is Meta's latest in a rapid string of solar contracts announced this year to support its growing data center operations. With this addition, Meta and Zelestra now have power purchase agreements covering approximately 1.4 gigawatts of solar capacity across eight projects in the United States, all expected to be operational by 2028. The portfolio includes the 176-megawatt Skull Creek Solar Plant in Indiana's Anderson County and the 200-megawatt Reclamation Solar Plant in Gibson County, Indiana — the latter built on land reclaimed from a former coal mining site.
"Meta is committed to bringing new renewable energy to the grid, and our expanding relationship with Zelestra is helping make that possible at scale," said Amanda Yang, Meta's head of clean and renewable energy. Zelestra's U.S. CEO, Phil North, described the pace of the partnership as moving from signed agreement to construction "in just a few months" across multiple projects simultaneously.
The Palmera deal comes on top of a separate, roughly 900-megawatt solar portfolio Meta has built with developer RWE over the past two years — meaning Meta now has more than 2 gigawatts of solar capacity under long-term contract between just these two partnerships alone, before counting agreements with other developers.
Why Meta Keeps Signing These Deals
The pace of Meta's solar contracting reflects the scale of power its AI infrastructure and data centers require, and the value of locking in electricity prices for the long term. Power purchase agreements typically run 15 to 20 years, giving Meta price certainty that insulates it from wholesale electricity market swings and rising grid infrastructure costs — the same forces currently pushing up utility rates for everyday homeowners. Each project also comes with tangible local benefits: construction jobs (roughly 200 at peak for projects like Skull Creek and Reclamation), long-term tax revenue for host counties, and new generation capacity added to regional grids.
What This Pattern Means for Homeowners
Meta's PPA buying spree is an extreme version of a decision available to any homeowner: rather than remaining fully exposed to a utility's pricing decisions, you can generate and store a meaningful share of your own power. Meta is doing this at gigawatt scale through 20-year contracts with developers; a homeowner does it through a rooftop solar and battery system sized to their usage. The logic is identical in both cases — energy cost predictability is valuable, and it's becoming more valuable as utility rates continue climbing well ahead of inflation across most of the country.
My Home & Solar Solution helps homeowners apply that same cost-certainty thinking to their own home, with a personalized look at what solar and battery storage would save based on your actual usage and rate plan. Visit myhomesolution.org to find out what the numbers look like for your house.
