Tech
El Paso Built Meta a $473M Gas Plant. Ratepayers Pay After 2032.
El Paso Electric is constructing a dedicated 366-megawatt natural gas plant for Meta's data center, with Meta paying all costs for five years. After that window closes, the $473 million McCloud facility enters the rate base for 460,000 customers at roughly $7 a month each.
El Paso Electric filed with Texas regulators in January to build a 366-megawatt natural gas plant for a single customer.
The McCloud Generation Facility occupies 31 acres in Northeast El Paso, adjacent to Meta's campus, whose December 2023 city incentive agreement started the project. Enchanted Rock, a Houston firm, will run 813 modular generators at 450 kilowatts each, with no water cooling, at a total cost of $473 million. Target: operational by 2027.
The generators emit carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides into a city the EPA already ranks among the worst nationally for ozone pollution.
Under the arrangement El Paso Electric filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, Meta covers every construction and operating dollar for up to five years. The McCloud plant stays off EPE's transmission system during that window.
The utility told regulators the deal saves 460,000 existing customers a collective $40 million per year. Meta absorbs grid maintenance costs previously spread across the rate base.
After the bridge period ends around 2032, El Paso Electric will file to put McCloud into the rate base. The PUC application commits to incorporating "the cost of the facility into its total jurisdictional cost of service and retail rates." The $40 million in annual savings ends in 2032; the plant's cost recovery does not.
The Numbers Not in the Press Release
The December 2023 incentive agreement granted Meta up to $110 million in combined property tax abatements over 15 years, contingent on an $800 million investment. The deal requires Meta to maintain only 50 full-time jobs. Neither figure appeared in the October 2025 groundbreaking announcement.
El Paso City Council voted 6-0 on January 6, 2026, to intervene in the PUC application. Councilman Chris Canales said the gas plant "would run contrary to the City's goals" under its climate action plan. The plan targets 50% emissions cuts by 2030.
At a Las Cruces industry conference that January, CEO Kelly Tomblin questioned the efficacy of renewables to power data centers, per Texas Tribune's account. El Paso Electric has publicly committed to 80% carbon-free generation by 2035.
El Paso Water permitted Meta to draw as much as 1.5 million gallons per day; Meta's quoted expected average is 400,000. At the permitted ceiling, the annual draw is roughly 1,680 acre-feet.
Mountain-front recharge into the Hueco Bolson runs about 5,600 acre-feet per year, the standard academic estimate for El Paso County. El Paso Water supplements that with an active injection program of roughly 5,000 acre-feet annually.
The city still pumps 40,000 to 50,000 acre-feet from the aquifer each year. Meta's ceiling alone claims 30 percent of what nature puts back.
What the Bridge Structure Carries Forward
The PUC application's arithmetic resolves to a number El Paso Electric has not stated. At standard 25-year utility depreciation and an 8% regulated return on rate base, McCloud's entry into cost-of-service generates roughly $37 million per year. Spread across 460,000 accounts, that is about $7 per residential bill per month.
The McCloud docket is separate from the general rate case PUCT resolved in February 2026. That decision raised average residential bills by $13 a month for $1.55 billion in infrastructure investments filed before Meta signed. The two rate cases carry no joint-disclosure requirement in the PUC record.
If McCloud enters rate base around 2032, the $7 a month lands on customers who already absorbed that increase. The depreciation schedule El Paso Electric files in the McCloud rate case will determine whether $7 is the floor.