Google's $800M Clean Energy Initiative: Powering AI-Driven Data Centers with Renewable Sources

Google goes solar as grid can't power its future datacenters

Deal with Intersect Power will see gigawatts of compute capacity come online Google believes the US electricity grid can't deliver the energy needed to power datacenters that deliver AI services, so has formed an alliance to build industrial parks powered by clean energy, at which it will build "gigawatts of datacenter capacity" across the nation. The search megalith announced its plan on Wednesday. Google president Ruth Porat wrote that the US is poised to enjoy strong economic growth thanks to AI, increased manufacturing activity, and the electrification of transport and other industries. But Porat thinks those opportunities could be missed due to the wonky electricity grid, which she wrote has "not kept pace with the country's economic growth opportunity" and is sometimes "unable to accommodate load increases." Google's response is a deal with solar energy firm Intersect Power, and financier TPG Rise Climate, to build industrial parks next to renewable energy generation facilities that Porat wrote will be "purpose-built and right-sized for the datacenter." Google will build datacenters at those parks - meaning they have a long-term customer from day one - and believes it can build bit barns faster under this arrangement. Intersect Power agreeswith that analysis, describing the deal as a "'power-first' approach to datacenter development." The generation plants Intersect Energy builds will also be connected to the grid, and provide power to other tenants of the industrial parks. Intersect Power's portfolio consists of 2.2GW of operating solar PV and accompanying battery storage in operation or construction. Intersect doesn't appear to have any wind investments. It previously sold a 1.7GW bundle of renewable energy generation in California and Texas to SoftBank - all of which involved solar power. Google and TPG are investing $800 million into Intersect to fund the deal. Intersect noted in its press release announcing the partnership that the first co-located clean energy project with Google is slated to come online in 2026. Where that facility will be located is anyone's guess - Google told us that it didn't have anything else to share about the news beyond what has been revealed in press releases, but would share details on specific projects "soon." Intersect Power didn't respond to requests for comment. Despite Google's admission that its CO emissions rose 13 percent between 2022 and 2023, Google maintains AI is not the reason for the increase as it remains a small fraction of its datacenter workloads. The search giant has made several renewable and low-carbon energy investments this year - the Intersect deal is just the latest it's announced. All its programs, a Google spokesperson told us, fulfill the biz's "overall focus [on identifying] structures and pathways to power generation that add carbon-free resources to the grid to meet growing load with new capacity." In June 2024 the big G announced a deal with Nevada-based NV Energy to use geothermal power for its datacenters in the state. That transaction also saw Google sign a Clean Transition Tariff (CTT) - a deal that requires energy customers with a minimum monthly load of 5MW (eg, Google) to cover the costs of new clean energy projects by paying a premium over what they'd be charged for energy drawn elsewhere from the grid, essentially funding the cost of new projects. The Chocolate Factory believes CTTs will improve on its previous efforts to source renewable energy. "The customer gets fixed-price power and ownership of the environmental attributes of the power procured, which enables Google to meet its voluntary corporate clean energy commitments," noted a report on CTTs from Columbia Law School. There is one catch here: Getting CTTs approved in Nevada requires the blessing of the state's Public Utilities Commission. Despite the application being lodged months ago, the PUC is yet to approve the deal. Regulators' opinions on the deal are unclear, and according to a document [PDF] filed last week by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, the hearing isn't scheduled to take place until late May. Regulatory niceties mean approval for CTTs might not be official until sometime in June or July, we're told. Google also signed a deal with Kairos Power in October to outfit future datacenters with small modular reactors (SMRs), making it just one of many tech giants turning to nuclear power to feed its facilities. As we've noted in multiple stories of late, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others are investing heavily in the power of the atom to power future datacenters. Kairos hasn't built a working reactor molten salt SMR yet, and only has plans to get a test facility up and running by 2030. There aren't even many SMRs in the world - China, Russia, and Japan each host one functional unit, despite several groups working on other designs. And let's not get started on the scarcity of the fuel needed to power such reactors: high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) that powers SMRs and other next-gen nuclear reactors is only produced at scale in China and Russia, and the US can only move so fast to commercialize domestic production. While it waits, Google has poured additional cash into carbon capture technology to offset its greenhouse gas emissions - but the direct air capture provider behind it may not be able to scale up until the 2030s. This deal with Intersect appears to be capable of providing clean juice without needing new technology to be developed. ®

Google says its next data centers will be built alongside wind and solar farms

The next series of Google data centers would use solar and wind farms A new partnership between Google, energy firm Intersect Power, and climate solutions organization TPG Rise Climate, will look to to provide clean power for the company's future data centers. As the demand for AI grows rapidly, tech companies are expanding their capabilities - but Google is making a positive step towards a sustainable future with on-site renewable energy sources for its data centers. Data centers are notoriously causing energy consumptions to skyrocket, and at the current rate, are soon set to use more energy than we currently produce. This means that firms are having to weigh up the accelerated consumption and their sustainability goals. To help tackle this issue, Google is hoping to connect its data centers directly to solar and wind farms, instead of the existing power grid which overwhelmingly uses fossil fuels. This would also ease the burden on the already weakened power grid, and would improve reliability for energy customers. The first phase of this infrastructure development is expected to be operational by 2026, and amounts to a $20 billion investment in all. In future, where possible, Google will build data centers on campuses equipped with their own clean power, in 'co-located industrial parks'. Google hopes this will be a 'blueprint for the future', and allow the firm to expand its digital infrastructure in a sustainable way. It looks unlikely that AI will be any less power-intensive for the foreseeable future, so creating sustainable solutions will be key. "To realize AI's potential, the growth in electricity demand must be met with new, clean power sources." said Amanda Peterson Corio, Global Head of Data Center Energy at Google. "The scale of AI presents an opportunity to completely rethink data center development -- by co-locating them where possible with the grid-connected carbon-free energy that keeps them up and running,"

Why Google's $800M bet on clean energy has everyone talking

Alphabet's Google, along with TPG Rise Climate and other investors, has invested over $800 million in clean energy developer Intersect Power to expand its data center capacity amidst the growing demand driven by AI technologies. This significant funding comes as companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta seek to enhance their domestic infrastructure to meet surging cloud and data processing demands. The partnership aims to develop industrial parks with co-located data centers and renewable energy facilities. By situating data centers next to clean energy sources, Google intends to alleviate pressure on the power grid and minimize project delivery timelines. The move addresses the challenges faced by the U.S. electrical systems to meet the rapidly increasing power needs of technologies like Generative AI, which have begun to stress the country's already vulnerable infrastructure. As a principal customer for Intersect Power's energy production, Google plans to operate new data centers powered directly by clean energy. This strategy entails bringing new generation capacity online alongside data center launches, thereby enhancing power delivery and grid reliability. The first phase of this collaborative project is expected to commence operations by 2026 and reach full completion by 2027. In conjunction with TPG Rise Climate and Intersect Power, Google disclosed plans to invest $20 billion in renewable energy and energy-storage solutions by 2030. This approach focuses on co-locating data centers with solar, wind, and battery infrastructures. As major tech firms face escalating energy demands for their growing data center fleets, procuring enough clean energy has surged to a top priority. Both Google and Intersect Power recognize the intertwined challenges of scaling energy production and meeting rigorous carbon-free targets. The complexities presented by the current U.S. transmission grids add urgency as major players race against time to build expansive data center facilities. Intersect Power has begun financing its first project under this partnership, expected to launch at an undisclosed site within the specified timeline. The company recently reported raising over $800 million in its equity investment round, led by TPG Rise Climate, with contributions from Google and other existing investors. Environmental tax on cheap fashion imports: France takes aim at sustainability issues The strategy revolves around creating industrial parks fueled by renewable power while remaining linked to the grid. "We're looking at siting next to power generation and creating these industrial parks -- still connected to the grid at the substation or interconnection point, but removing the bottlenecks to bringing generation online and also loads online," Amanda Peterson Corio, Google's global head of data center energy, told Canary Media. "Where we can implement this strategy, we think it's a great way to reduce grid stress and make new load as clean as possible." Intersect Power has made substantial strides toward this objective, operating 2.2 gigawatts of solar projects and 2.4 gigawatt-hours of battery initiatives across California and Texas. The company envisions larger expansions that could supply up to 80% of a site's energy needs directly from renewable sources, minimally relying on the grid for power. Challenges remain, particularly in convincing customers to develop new facilities in regions rich in renewable resources. New data from consultancy Grid Strategies highlights the soaring electricity demands expected from data centers, projecting an increase from 23 gigawatts in 2022 to nearly 128 gigawatts by December 2024. This rapid growth poses significant risks to national decarbonization efforts, necessitating a careful balance between expanding energy capacity and achieving climate goals. Sierra Club's report urges tech companies to focus on clean energy and smart energy sourcing. It emphasizes the importance of siting facilities in regions with robust renewable energy availability to prevent compromises on decarbonization objectives. Google, for its part, remains committed to using round-the-clock carbon-free energy in its data centers by 2030, although its growing power appetite has resulted in rising emissions -- 13% higher in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Google's future data centers will be built next to solar and wind farms

It's partnering with energy company Intersect Power and investment firm TPG Rise Climate on a $20 billion initiative to develop an unspecified number of "industrial parks" across the US this decade. The first one is supposed to be partially operational by 2026 and completed by 2027. If successful, it would be a big change to how data centers are typically built and operated. Google and its competitors are racing to find clean sources of electricity for energy-hungry AI data centers. But the US electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels; connecting new data centers to the power grid leads to more pollution as a result. With this new partnership, Google can bypass that problem by connecting directly to solar and wind farms and batteries for renewable energy.

A new approach to data center and clean energy growth

Today, Google is entering a strategic partnership with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate to synchronize new clean power generation with data center growth in a novel way. The tri-party partnership brings a new approach that can enable U.S. leadership in AI development, while thoughtfully building data center load next to new additional power generation where possible -- reducing both the timeline to operation and the amount of new transmission required. Together, Google, Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate will develop industrial parks with gigawatts of data center capacity in the U.S., co-located with new clean energy plants to power them. The first phase of the first co-located clean energy project is expected to be operational by 2026 and fully complete in 2027. Additionally, Google, TPG Rise Climate and other investors are making a capital investment in Intersect Power. This partnership was motivated by the reality that resources are necessary to capture AI's extraordinary potential to advance scientific breakthroughs and solve critical challenges in healthcare, education and beyond -- and generate economic growth. Economists estimate the GDP uplift of AI in the U.S. alone could be in excess of a trillion dollars annually by 2030. Additionally, there is the upside from two additional catalysts for the U.S. economy and job creation: first, onshoring of manufacturing operations and second, the electrification of the transport, heating and cooling sectors. These profound opportunities require expanding electricity capacity with reliable, secure power sources. But to capture the upside, the public and private sector each need to do their part to support the development of job-creating power infrastructure. To that end, Google is focused on evolving digital infrastructure development by co-locating grid-connected carbon-free energy and data center investments into closely-linked infrastructure projects. This approach is an important complement to efforts to unlock development of new transmission infrastructure and to optimize utilization of the existing grid. America's electricity grid planning and investment have not kept pace with the country's economic growth opportunity. Many regional grids face generation capacity and transmission bottlenecks, leaving them unable to accommodate load increases. As a result, for U.S. power projects, the typical time from proposal to construction has more than doubled, from less than two years for projects built in 2000-2007 to more than four years for those built in 2018-2023. To address these grid constraints, Google's partnership with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate will deliver new clean energy that is purpose-built and right-sized for the data center. When Intersect Power builds new clean energy assets in regions and projects of interest, Google will be able to provide power offtake as an anchor tenant in the co-located industrial park that would support data center development. Once built, this means the Google data center would come online alongside its own clean power, bringing new generation capacity to the grid to meet our load, reduce time to operation and improve grid reliability. "The convergence of two megatrends -- decarbonization and digitization -- is creating unique opportunities for innovative partnerships," says Jim Coulter, Executive Chairman of TPG and Managing Partner of TPG Rise Climate. "Bringing together a leading carbon-free power producer, one of the world's largest hyperscalers and the leading private equity investor in climate solutions to capitalize on this opportunity, we are committed to delivering carbon-free data centers at lower cost and greater scale." The new agreement brings together pioneers at the intersection of clean energy and data center development. Intersect Power is a leading clean energy company, providing scalable low-carbon solutions to customers in global energy markets. It is a portfolio company of TPG Rise Climate, a market leading private equity investor in scaling climate solutions globally. At Google, we have invested in computing infrastructure for decades. Google's data centers are among the most efficient in the world, helping meet growing demand for Google Cloud and powering our other digital services -- like Search, Maps and Workspace -- that organizations and people around the world use every day. "This partnership is an evolution of the way hyperscalers and power providers have previously worked together. We can and are developing innovative solutions to rapidly expand clean power capacity at scale while reducing the strain on the grid," says Sheldon Kimber, CEO and Founder of Intersect Power. "Deep, collaborative partnerships combined with creative problem-solving are the only way that we can meet the explosion of AI growth, as well as society's accelerating electricity demand. Our approach makes it possible to do all of this and unlock meaningful opportunities for rural economic development along the way." This model is a great opportunity to apply private capital to the tight coupling of load growth with new clean energy in markets across the U.S. (and ultimately globally). This "power first" approach to data center development is an evolved model that can significantly reduce delivery timelines of new power generation and the projects that will use it -- and is designed to ease grid burden and improve overall reliability and affordability for all energy customers. In close coordination with grid planners, operators and communities, Google will continue to otherwise invest in local clean energy resources that drive economic benefits and competitively-priced clean energy capacity. It is crucial that markets expand their digital infrastructure responsibly and sustainably, ultimately increasing access to clean energy capacity for all.

Google, Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate Partner to Power AI Data Centers with Clean Energy

Google has teamed up with Intersect Power (Intersect) and TPG Rise Climate to synchronise the development of data centers with clean energy generation, accelerating the transition to a carbon-free future for AI. The strategic partnership aims to provide scaled renewable power and storage solutions to new data centers. "The tri-party partnership brings a new approach that can enable US leadership in AI development," said Ruth Porat, President and Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google. Also Read: Google Inks Nuclear Power Agreement to Power AI Data Centres The partnership aims to address the growing demand for reliable, carbon-free power to support the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital services. Together, Google, Intersect Power, and TPG Rise Climate will develop industrial parks with gigawatts of data center capacity in the US, co-located with new clean energy plants to power them. The first phase of the first co-located clean energy project is expected to be operational by 2026 and fully complete in 2027. Intersect Power also announced a funding round of more than USD 800 million, led by TPG Rise Climate and Google, with participation from Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners. "This partnership was motivated by the reality that resources are necessary to capture AI's extraordinary potential to advance scientific breakthroughs and solve critical challenges in healthcare, education and beyond -- and generate economic growth," Google said in a statement on December 10. Also Read: Google and Vodafone Expand Partnership to Bring AI-Powered Services Across Europe and Africa "This partnership is an evolution of the way hyperscalers and power providers have previously worked together. We can and are developing innovative solutions to expand data center capacity while reducing the strain on the grid," said Sheldon Kimber, CEO and Founder of Intersect Power. "Deep, collaborative partnerships combined with creative problem-solving are the only way that we can meet the explosion of AI growth, as well as society's accelerating electricity demand." "To realise AI's potential, the growth in electricity demand must be met with new, clean power sources. The scale of AI presents an opportunity to completely rethink data center development -- by co-locating them where possible with the grid-connected carbon-free energy that keeps them up and running," said Amanda Peterson Corio, Global Head of Data Center Energy at Google. "We're bringing this opportunity to life by combining pioneers at the intersection of data centers and clean energy development to synchronise load growth with new power generation in a novel way. We hope to replicate this model in multiple markets across the US and around the world." Under the terms of the partnership, Intersect Power will build new clean energy assets, with Google acting as an anchor tenant in co-located industrial parks via its newly constructed data center campuses. Once operational, the Google data center will come online alongside its own clean power source, contributing new generation capacity to the grid to meet its load requirements. Also Read: Google Features Startups Using AI to Transform Mental Health Support According to Google, economists estimate that AI could contribute over a trillion dollars annually to US GDP by 2030. Intersect Power, a clean energy company, provides scalable low-carbon solutions to customers in global energy markets. It is a portfolio company of TPG Rise Climate, a private equity investor focused on scaling climate solutions globally. Google's partnership with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate will deliver new clean energy that is purpose-built and right-sized for the data center.