Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has quit RE100, the global corporate initiative whose members commit to using 100% renewable electricity. That’s because Meta is bankrolling a fleet of new gas-fired power plants to fuel its expanding AI data centers.
Recharge first reported in an exclusive story on July 23 that Meta and RE100 had parted ways because the tech giant no longer met the initiative’s technical criteria. Meta joined RE100 as Facebook in 2016 and pledged to cover its entire operation with renewable electricity by 2020. The tech giant stated in 2021 that it had reached that target. Meta has always done so with renewable energy certificates (RECs) and PPAs, not by powering directly with renewables.
Then came AI’s insatiable appetite for power.
At Meta’s largest data center, Hyperion, in Richland Parish, Louisiana, the original power plan called for three new gas plants totaling about 2.26 gigawatts (GW). (Oh, and the New York Times reports: “No insurers would provide full coverage for Hyperion because it was so big and was being built in a flood plain.”)
In March 2026, utility Entergy Louisiana announced a second agreement: Meta will fund seven additional combined-cycle gas plants, totaling more than 5.2 GW. That takes the Louisiana buildout to 10 gas plants and roughly 7.5 GW. Meta is also tied to a 200-megawatt (MW) behind-the-meter gas project in Ohio announced in June 2025.
Meta isn’t alone – Google has agreed to buy power from a 400 MW Illinois gas plant with carbon capture, while Microsoft signed a 20-year deal for a 2.67 GW gas plant at its West Texas data center. But its Big Tech rivals Apple, Google, and Microsoft remain on RE100’s 444-company roster.
Meta says it still matches 100% of its annual electricity use with “clean and renewable energy” and has supported more than 30 GW of wind, solar, battery, nuclear, and geothermal projects. Entergy’s Louisiana package also includes Meta funding for up to 2.5 GW of renewables.
But that annual matching is a big fudge. Meta can buy renewable energy certificates or back clean energy elsewhere, but its data centers will be using fossil-fuel-generated electricity around the clock. Supporting new renewables on the grid and on paper doesn’t make those gas plants renewable, and they’ll run and cause harmful emissions for decades.
Meta says gas is necessary where utilities cannot meet its AI power needs, and it’s now seeking certificates for lower-methane gas. But we know renewables can power data centers, because Big Tech is busy commissioning solar farms to do so left and right, including Meta.
So Meta hasn’t abandoned renewables altogether; it’s just got its fingers crossed behind its back. It has abandoned the clean, unambiguous promise that put it in RE100: 100% renewable electricity. When AI growth and that pledge collided, the pledge was the goalpost that moved.
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