Over the past few months, nuclear power may have received the most attention from energy-hungry technology companies, including Google. But these new reactors don't seem to be enough for AI's ambitions. Google is currently working with partners to build gigawatts of renewable power, battery storage, and grid upgrades to power its data centers.
Google announced Tuesday that it has signed a deal with renewable energy developer Intersect Power and investment fund TPG Rise Climate to ramp up enough carbon-free electricity to power multiple gigawatt-sized data centers. Investments in renewable power total approximately $20 billion, and Intersect has already funded the first projects, the company told TechCrunch.
The deal also includes an $800 million equity investment in Intersect Power, with TPG leading the round and participation from CAI, Google, and Greenbelt Capital Partners.
As tech companies like Google rush to ramp up their AI capabilities, they have embarked on construction work so large that experts predict they may run out of new AI data center capacity by 2027. are. This is forcing high-tech companies to invest in new energy sources.
The new project would feature a hypothetical 1-gigawatt data center with equal amounts of wind, solar and battery storage, each with enough capacity to last two to four hours, Bloomberg reports. . Both the data center and the renewable power park will be connected to the same point on the power grid. Google said it would pay for any upgrades needed to the grid.
The arrangement is expected to quickly connect data centers and renewable power parks. According to Interconnection.fyi, there are 11,860 active requests from utility companies to connect to the grid in the United States. A total of 2.05 terawatts of capacity is in standby, nearly double the capacity currently installed and connected. Most of it is for solar and battery projects.
Google and Intersect will take a phased approach, with the first phase coming online by 2026 and fully completed by 2027, highlighting the speed of renewable power deployment.
This pace will put pressure on nuclear power startups and developers planning longer schedules. The earliest nuclear power project, Microsoft's restart of the Three Mile Island reactor, is scheduled to come online in 2028. Google's deal with small modular nuclear reactor startup Kairos has a 2030 deadline for construction of the first of several power plants, while Amazon's deal with SMR startup X -Energy We are targeting the early 2030s.
All of this assumes that the project progresses as planned and is completed on time, which the nuclear industry has so far failed to achieve.