Meta, Apex Clean Energy agree to 144-MW Texas solar PPA

Meta has agreed to buy power from a new 144-megawatt solar project, called Starling Solar, being built by Apex Clean Energy in Gonzales County, Texas. Under the deal, Meta gets exclusive rights to all the environmental credits from the project's power, and the project is expected to start operating in 2027 (though a grid operator report lists a slightly later date of January 2028). This adds to a growing partnership between the two companies, which now spans seven solar and wind projects totaling 1.2 gigawatts across Texas, Virginia, Illinois, Kansas and Iowa.

This kind of deal is a corporate power purchase agreement, essentially a long-term contract where a big company like Meta commits to buying electricity and its associated clean-energy credits from a specific solar or wind farm. It's separate from Meta's other big Texas investments, including a data center in El Paso and a deal with another company, ENGIE, for a 600-megawatt solar project.

For homeowners, this isn't something that changes your bills or your rebate options directly. It reflects a broader trend of tech companies locking up large amounts of new solar power to run data centers, which does add generation capacity to the Texas grid overall. There's no new program, incentive, or deadline here that applies to individual homes.