Idaho just turned on a massive new solar farm. Meta has first dibs
Idaho added enough solar energy to power as many as 25,000 homes this week, all earmarked for one of the world’s largest companies: Meta.
Salt Lake-based rPlus Energies commissioned the 125 megawatt Pleasant Valley 2 solar farm in eastern Ada County on Tuesday – power paid for by tech conglomerate formerly known as Facebook to run a portion of its forthcoming $800 million Kuna data center.
RPlus’ new plant, added to the grid through a deal with Idaho Power and Meta, comes online at a critical time for Idaho’s energy infrastructure. A 2025 planning document forecasts peak energy demand to grow nearly 45% over the next 20 years, culminating the same year as the deadline for Idaho Power’s voluntary goal of producing 100% clean energy.
Much of that surge is happening right now: Idaho Power is expecting 8% annual growth in demand over each of the next five years, Jared Hansen, resource planning leader at the utility, told the Idaho Statesman in a July interview. That’s quadruple the growth rate Idaho Power was seeing even a decade ago, Hansen said, and more than five times faster than the state’s population.
“We have significant need – anyone from Idaho, you know that,” Idaho Power Resource Development Director Eric Hackett said. “It’s essential that we bring projects like Pleasant Valley 2 online to serve customers safely, reliably and affordably, and this does all three.”
Hackett said Pleasant Valley 2 will benefit customers “big and small,” though it was developed with a big one in mind. Pleasant Valley 2 is one of three solar generators that Meta is using to power its Kuna data center, Idaho Power spokesman Sven Berg told the Statesman.
Under a contract with Idaho Power, Meta will pay to buy all of the electricity produced by the three plants, plus a share of the systemwide costs of transmitting power to the data center, Berg said. The combined output is expected to “meet or exceed” the data center’s energy requirements, Berg said. Meta previously stated that electricity for its nearly 1-million-square-foot data center’s electricity use will be “matched with 100% clean and renewable energy.”
Idaho law allows the utility to strike approved stand-alone deals with large energy users, and Idaho Power does not disclose how much power individual customers use, Berg told the Statesman. But Berg on Wednesday confirmed that three of rPlus’ recent solar projects in Ada County are for Meta’s data center. Pleasant Valley 1, since sold to a different operator, generates 200 megawatts of electricity. Pleasant Valley 2, now online, generates 125 megawatts. And Blacks Creek, by far the largest of them all, is expected to produce 400 megawatts once it wraps in late 2027, according to rPlus spokesperson Maile Resta.
That figure is complicated to translate. Electricity production and consumption is measured in megawatt hours, not by what it can put out at its peak capacity, and solar panels don’t generate power 24/7. Collectively, though, that topline figure of 725 megawatts is the equivalent to just under 20% of Idaho Power’s all-time record load demand, which came during a heatwave at 7 p.m. on July 22, 2024, according to company data. Per the terms of its deal with Idaho Power, Meta cannot pay to produce more than 110% of its energy requirements, since it can be paid back for power it adds to the grid but doesn’t use, Berg said.
Idaho lags behind peers in solar production, ranking 34th of 50 states in installed solar power capacity, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a nonprofit trade group. Backed by Boise-based Gardner Company, an early investor, rPlus aims to scale that up through a more than $750 million worth of solar investment in Idaho solar, according to the company. It appears on track to surpass that: Pleasant Valley 2 represents about $175 million “investment into the community,” according to rPlus President Luigi Resta. Blacks Creek will represent $650 million more, according to the company.
“These projects are critical for the energy infrastructure we need to support our growing economy,” Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bobbi-Jo Meuleman said Tuesday evening.
The scope of the next project shouldn’t diminish the size of the one that just wrapped. Pleasant Valley 2 took seven years from its first application to its first megawatt. The site, which sits just out of view from the highway about 4 miles south of the Boise Stage Stop off of exit 71, encompasses nearly 300,000 industrial solar panels and enough cable to stretch from the farm to Salt Lake City. It took 1,700 truckloads to deliver all the material to the property, according to the company.
Still, that’s a light lift for power generation, according to Maile Resta. Solar, she said, remains “super fast to deploy” compared to other forms of power generation.
“It’s faster to get that energy onto the grid – and it’s critical that we do it fast,” she said. “People need energy now.”