Meta's El Paso AI Campus to Run on 813 On-Site Gas Generators

A tech company building its own dedicated gas power plant is not new. A tech company building one made of 813 modular gas generators, on 31 acres next to the data center it exists to serve, is what is new, and it is where the AI power story is actually going.

According to The New York Times, Meta's roughly 1 gigawatt El Paso AI campus would be powered by a $473 million on-site facility called McCloud, built and operated by Houston-based Enchanted Rock, with 813 modular natural gas generators each rated at 450 kilowatts of peak capacity. El Paso Electric filed the proposal, and reporting from El Paso Matters shows a target in-service date of 2027 on land adjacent to the data center itself. Local opponents have flagged water usage, air pollution, and the tax breaks attached to the site, though the generators are air-cooled, so the water complaint is narrower than usual.

The wider frame is what makes this more than a Texas siting story. The Times reports at least 82 gas-burning plants are being built or proposed nationally to feed data centers, with 74 new or expanded methane plants expected to add 143 gigawatts of capacity and release nearly 662 million tons per year of greenhouse gas pollution, comparable to Australia's national emissions. AI data centers currently consume about 4% to 6% of US electricity, and that figure is projected to rise as high as 12% by 2028. Since May, the Department of Energy has issued emergency authorization six times for PJM Interconnection and Southwest Power Pool to manage grid stress.

The part worth watching, if you are not directly in the power business, is the cost structure. Filings with the Public Utility Commission of Texas show the utility plans to shift the plant's cost to all customers after an initial one- to five-year bridge period during which Meta pays. In practice, a hyperscaler gets bespoke gas capacity stood up fast, and the ratepayer base gets the depreciation schedule once the training job moves on.

The honest caveat is that the emissions and grid figures aggregate proposals and filings, not commissioned plants, and the McCloud project still needs regulatory approval. What the reporting does not give you is the permitting path for a microgrid of 813 gas units, or what happens if the AI load shifts toward the nuclear deals Meta has separately signed in Ohio and Pennsylvania. For infrastructure investors (BlackRock now holds a majority stake in the Meta El Paso venture), the direction is the point: AI's power bill is being built as private, gas-fired, and increasingly off the shared grid.