The AIDC Paradox: Why Did Meta Leave RE100? [Energy Odyssey] 14

III. The Dream of Electrification
Surging AI Data Center Power Demand Drives Growth in Gas-Fired Generation
U.S. Big Tech Companies Move to Diversify Energy Sources
RE100's Limitations... Google Announces 24/7 CFE Goal
Nuclear Power Likely to Play a Bigger Role After 2030

Editor's NoteEnergy has become more important than ever amid supply chain disruptions caused by the recent Middle East war and the government's mega-projects. South Korea faces the difficult task of achieving energy security, carbon neutrality, and economic growth at the same time, while relying on imports for most of its primary energy. In this series, reporters covering energy issues on the ground will examine a range of current challenges and seek solutions.

Artist's rendering of the National AI Computing Center. Samsung SDS

Solaseado, a future energy city being developed across 20,899,330 square meters (about 6.32 million pyeong) in Guseong-ri, Sani-myeon, Haenam County, South Jeolla Province. A groundbreaking ceremony for the National AI Computing Center was held there in August. The plan is to build a national AI computing hub to support the training and research of ultra-large AI models by installing 15,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) by 2028. In effect, it will be an AI data center operated by the government.

One reason the National AI Computing Center is being built in Solaseado is the abundance of nearby renewable energy. Solaseado is home to South Korea's largest solar power complex, with 98 megawatts (MW) of solar power generation capacity and a 306-megawatt-hour (MWh) energy storage system (ESS) on a site of about 158 square meters (about 480,000 pyeong). Haenam is making every effort to have Solaseado designated as an RE100 national industrial complex, capitalizing on these strengths.

RE100 is a term that symbolically represents the Lee Jae-myung government's policy of expanding renewable energy. RE100 is a global campaign led by the Climate Group, a British nonprofit organization, under which companies pledge to source 100% of the electricity they use from renewable energy.

Major big tech companies, including Apple, Google, and Microsoft (MS), are members. As of 2026, 36 South Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Hyundai Motor, and LG Energy Solution, are participating as RE100 members.

A panoramic view of the Haenam solar power plant

Separately from the global campaign, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment is implementing the K-RE100 policy, which aims to raise the share of renewable energy used by public institutions to 60% by 2030. Starting this year, the ministry plans to assess the K-RE100 performance of 88 public institutions subject to management evaluations and reflect the results in their evaluation indicators.

Institutions and companies participating in RE100 can certify their compliance through various means, including generating renewable energy themselves, power purchase agreements (PPAs), purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs), and green tariffs.

So how much of its electricity needs can the National AI Computing Center being built in Haenam's Solaseado, one of South Korea's most renewable-energy-rich areas, meet through RE100?

Can Haenam's National AI Data Center Achieve RE100?

The National AI Computing Center is scheduled to be built with a capacity of 40 MW in its first phase. This means it will consume 40 MW of electricity per hour, requiring 960 MWh to operate for 24 hours a day.

Because the National AI Computing Center is located within the Solaseado complex, it can comply with RE100 through a direct PPA. This means signing a power purchase agreement directly with a power generator without using the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) grid.

Even if the center uses all the electricity from Solaseado's 98 MW solar power plant and 306 MWh ESS through a direct PPA, the supply would meet its needs for only about eight hours.

Ultimately, the center has no choice but to use the KEPCO grid rather than a direct PPA. Oh Taewon, head of the Korea AI Computing Center Co., Ltd. (KOACC), a joint venture established to build and operate the center, said, "We plan to connect to KEPCO's power grid first and receive electricity through it. Since the project is still in its early stages, we have not yet decided on the specific methods the center will use to obtain renewable electricity." Two years remain until the center's scheduled completion in 2028.

The National AI Computing Center said that receiving electricity through the KEPCO grid does not mean it will not use renewable energy at all. Oh said, "Although the electricity will not come directly from renewable sources, you can think of it as the abundant renewable energy produced in the region being supplied indirectly through the KEPCO grid. In the future, we could also consider using distributed energy or receiving renewable electricity directly."

Samsung SDS, NAVER Cloud, Samsung C&T, Kakao, Samsung Electronics, Clush, KT, Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Self-Governing City, and Seonamhaean Enterprise City Development are participating in a consortium for the National AI Computing Center project. At the end of June, Samsung Group announced, as part of the government's mega-projects, that Samsung SDS would invest 17 trillion won to build a 210 MW AI data center in Solaseado. This would make it more than five times larger than the current plan.

As the scale of AI data centers grows, so does the amount of electricity they need. Haenam's Solaseado plans to build a 400 MW solar power complex, the largest in South Korea on a single site, by 2028, using 4.79 million square meters of unused land, including reclaimed land affected by saltwater. Of this capacity, 10 MW will be developed as agrivoltaics.

Climate, Energy and Environment Minister Kim Seonghwan takes part in a groundbreaking ceremony for a solar power facility at a renewable energy complex in Haenam County, Jeonnam-Gwangju, announcing the start of construction on the country’s largest single-site solar power facility, with a capacity of 400 MW. August 7, 2026. Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment

Expanding renewable energy alone will not immediately make it possible to supply power to AI data centers. Infrastructure such as ESSs, which can compensate for intermittency, must also be built, and this inevitably adds to the cost.

Companies will see little reason to use renewable energy if it is expensive. Another key question is whether renewable energy alone can provide a stable electricity supply around the clock.

What Happened When Meta Left RE100?

As AI data center construction spreads around the world, securing electricity is emerging as a bottleneck. Big tech companies, which have joined the RE100 campaign to promote carbon neutrality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are also facing a dilemma in the age of AI. They believe renewable energy alone cannot provide enough electricity to run large-scale AI data centers, and are revising their strategies.

A prominent example is Meta, the parent company of Facebook. In July, Meta acknowledged that it was no longer an RE100 member. Meta joined RE100 in 2016, when it was still Facebook, and said it had achieved RE100 in 2021.

Companies do not have to receive renewable energy such as solar or wind power directly to achieve RE100. They can demonstrate their use of renewable energy through indirect methods, such as purchasing RECs, signing PPAs, or using green tariffs.

In practice, companies receive electricity from a grid where it is impossible to determine where the electricity was generated. However, if they match their annual electricity consumption with renewable energy through REC purchases or PPAs, they are recognized as having achieved RE100. For example, a company that uses 1 gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity annually can be recognized as having achieved RE100 if it purchases RECs equivalent to 1 GWh or signs an agreement with a wind farm.

However, Meta withdrew from RE100 after it could no longer meet the requirement to use 100% renewable energy annually, even through this "RE100 matching" approach. It increased its investment in gas-fired power plants to provide a stable and rapid electricity supply to its AI data centers, making it difficult to achieve RE100.

Meta is building Hyperion, a massive data center in Louisiana. To supply the facility with electricity, it is investing in 10 natural gas power plants with a combined capacity of 7.5 gigawatts (GW). Meta also plans to receive electricity from a 200 MW gas-fired power plant under construction in Ohio.

U.S. Big Tech Companies Diversify Their Power Sources

Meta is not alone. U.S. big tech companies are also investing in gas-fired power plants and signing purchase agreements for large-scale nuclear power plants and small modular reactors (SMRs) to supply electricity to their AI data centers. They are diversifying their energy sources to secure power for AI.

On October 6, Google signed a long-term power supply agreement with Black Hills for a new gas-fired power plant to provide electricity to a data center being built in Wyoming. Black Hills will supply up to 590 MW of electricity to Google's data center through 2048. To do so, it plans to invest $1.8 billion (about 2.4 trillion won) to build a 564 MW gas-fired power plant.

Two days later, on October 8, Google signed a 3,950 MW PPA with Constellation, the largest nuclear power company in the United States. The amount of electricity is equivalent to the output of three to four 1 GW nuclear power plants. Constellation previously signed a long-term power purchase agreement for 835 MW with MS in September 2024, followed by supply agreements with Meta for 1.1 GW in June 2025 and Amazon for 690 MW in September 2026.

Amazon is also scrambling to secure electricity from any available source, including gas-fired power and nuclear power. In August, Amazon acquired the GW Ranch data center complex in Pecos County, Texas. It plans to build three data centers there, along with a 7.65 GW gas-fired power plant.

In June, U.S. oil company Chevron signed a 20-year agreement with MS to supply electricity from a 2.67 GW gas-fired power plant being built in Texas. Under this behind-the-meter arrangement, MS will build a data center near the power plant and receive electricity directly without routing it through the existing grid.

The rise in gas-fired power generation linked to the spread of AI data centers is also reflected in the statistics. According to an August 2026 report by market research firm Global Energy Monitor (GEM), plans for gas-fired power capacity in the United States totaled 378 GW in the first half of 2026. Half of that, or 189 GW, was tied directly to data center projects. Plans for gas-fired power generation linked to data centers doubled in a year, from 97 GW last year.

Although they are increasing their use of nuclear and gas-fired power, U.S. big tech companies have not abandoned investment in renewable energy. Meta says it is "working to match the electricity used by its data centers with 100% clean and renewable energy."

How Is Google's '24/7 CFE' Different from RE100?

On October 6, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeong-kwan was asked about RE100 measures for the Yongin National Industrial Complex during a parliamentary audit by the National Assembly's Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs and Startups Committee. He said, "On the issue of carbon neutrality, the companies in the semiconductor industry that first raised this issue have effectively given up or postponed their plans. Even companies like Google have now switched from RE100 to CF100 (Carbon Free 100). RE100 alone can no longer meet the needs of AI data centers and similar facilities."

Climate and environmental groups immediately challenged the minister's remarks. They said Google had not switched from RE100 to CF100. In a report published on October 22, renewable energy fact-checking platform Refact said it had asked Google directly and received the response: "Google has never left RE100 or joined CF100." Google has achieved RE100 for nine consecutive years, from 2021 through last year.

That said, the minister was not entirely wrong. His assessment that "RE100 alone can no longer meet the needs of AI data centers" is accurate.

Although Google remains an RE100 member, it does not regard RE100 as an absolute standard. Recognizing RE100's limitations, Google is pursuing the more demanding 24/7 CFE (Carbon-Free Energy) initiative. The CF100 mentioned by the minister and Google's 24/7 CFE are different concepts.

In September 2020, Google announced that it would achieve 24/7 CFE by 2030, using carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at all its data centers and offices worldwide.

Unlike RE100, which matches renewable energy use on an annual basis, 24/7 CFE certifies the use of carbon-free energy on an hourly basis. This means using carbon-free power at all times. Google considers 24/7 CFE more suitable for achieving genuine carbon neutrality.

24/7 CFE has a broader scope than RE100 because it includes nuclear power as well as renewable sources such as solar and wind. Nuclear power is included because, due to the intermittent nature of solar and wind power, it is virtually impossible to match electricity generation with consumption hour by hour using these renewables alone. Investment in storage facilities such as ESSs is also underway, but supplying renewable energy around the clock would require massive investment.

CF100, meanwhile, refers to the CFE Initiative proposed by the Yoon Suk Yeol government to the international community in 2023. The CFE Initiative encompasses not only renewable energy but also nuclear power, clean hydrogen, and technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The Yoon Suk Yeol government formed the CF Alliance with private companies and pursued efforts to develop international standards, but the initiative lost momentum after the change of government. It has not been determined whether CF100 would use annual matching like RE100 or operate on an hourly basis, and no details have been made public about how it would be certified. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that Google has switched to CF100.

Is Google's Approach the Answer?

Google's electricity consumption last year was 43.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), up 37.5% from 31.7 TWh the year before. Despite this, it achieved RE100 by matching 100% of its annual electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases.

This means that even if Google's data centers or offices around the world use electricity generated by gas-fired power plants, the company meets the 100% renewable energy requirement by purchasing an equivalent amount of renewable energy annually. Google said it signed contracts to purchase more than 12 GW of new clean energy in 2025 alone.

Although Google has achieved RE100, its progress toward 24/7 CFE has stalled for several years. Google's global share of CFE use in 2025 was 65%. Its CFE share has remained nearly unchanged for five years, after standing at 66% in 2021. At this rate, achieving 24/7 CFE by 2030 appears difficult.

Google's CFE share has made little progress because demand for electricity from AI data centers is growing faster than the pace at which carbon-free power can be secured. Solar and wind power alone have limitations in providing a stable supply of electricity around the clock, while building other carbon-free power sources, such as nuclear, fusion, and geothermal energy, takes time.

In October 2024, Google signed a 500 MW power purchase agreement with SMR developer Kairos Power. The reactor is not expected to begin operating until after 2030. In July 2025, Google signed an agreement to purchase 200 MW of electricity from fusion power company Commonwealth Fusion Systems. That plant is also not expected to begin operating until the early 2030s.

It is also worth noting that Google's greenhouse gas emissions have risen significantly despite its achievement of RE100.

In its 2026 Environmental Report, Google said its greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 rose 18% year over year to 14.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). This was the largest annual increase since Google began publishing environmental reports in 2016. The sharp rise is attributed to the extensive infrastructure required to expand AI data centers.

IEA: "Nuclear Power to Play an Important Role After 2030"

U.S. big tech companies are relying on gas-fired power to supply the electricity their AI data centers need immediately, but nuclear power is expected to replace a substantial portion of gas-fired power's role over the long term.

According to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) 2025 report, "Energy Supply for AI," natural gas accounts for the largest share of electricity supplied to data centers in the United States, at 40%. Renewable energy follows at 24%, while nuclear power and coal account for 20% and 15%, respectively.

The IEA expects natural gas to be the largest source of additional electricity over the next five years, supplying an extra 130 TWh annually by 2030. It forecasts that renewable energy will follow, supplying 110 TWh.

The IEA said, "Nuclear power will play an important role in meeting electricity demand from data centers in the United States," adding that "it will become even more important after the 2030s, when small modular reactors (SMRs) are expected to come online." The IEA expects the expansion of renewable energy and SMRs to reduce natural gas use. It forecasts that low-emissions energy sources will account for half of the electricity supplied to data centers by 2035 as renewable generation expands and SMRs are deployed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.