ERock starts building 366 MW gas plant for Meta's El Paso data centre

ERock said on 12 November 2026 that it has started construction, on schedule, of a 366 MW generation plant that El Paso Electric is adding to supply Meta's data centre campus in El Paso, Texas.

Chief executive John Carrington said the plant is still expected to be finished in mid-2027. In its application to state regulators, El Paso Electric set August 2026 for the start of work and May 2027 for completion.

The utility calls the project the McCloud generation facilities. According to the regulator's preliminary order, it is made up of 813 modular generators running on natural gas, each rated at 450 kW peak and grouped four or five at a time into units called RockBlocks. El Paso Electric is to own the plant, while Enchanted Rock LLC is to construct it and then run and maintain it.

El Paso Electric told the regulator the plant will stand next to the data centre, which it says belongs to Meta, in northeast El Paso. For as long as five years, a stretch the utility calls a bridge period, the plant is to feed only the data centre and stay off El Paso Electric's transmission system; the order says its output will be capped at 225 MW during that period. The utility says limits on the grid at the site, and the date the data centre needs its power, ruled out generation placed elsewhere.

ERock also said it is adding 900 MW a year of manufacturing capacity at a new plant in Houston named Atlas, which it expects to take its total to 2.1 GW a year in 2028.

On supply, the company said a contract with HD Construction Equipment for engine long blocks gives it more certainty of parts and lets it build more for customers in 2028. When it announced that agreement on 7 October 2026, ERock described HD Construction Equipment as a Hyundai subsidiary and said the long blocks, which it calls the core of its natural gas generators, are for its RockBlock generator and cover 2027 and 2028.