Google kicks off $20B renewable energy building spree to power AI


Nuclear power may have received the lion’s share of attention from energy hungry tech companies over the past few months, with Google among them. But it appears that those new reactors won’t be enough for their AI ambitions: Google is now working with partners to build gigawatts of renewable power, battery storage, and grid upgrades to power its data centers.

Google announced Tuesday it signed a deal with renewable developer Intersect Power and investment fund TPG Rise Climate to spin up enough carbon-free power to drive several gigawatt-scale data centers. Altogether, the investment in renewable power will run about $20 billion, and Intersect is already financing the first project, the company told TechCrunch.

The deal also includes an $800 million equity investment in Intersect Power, with TPG leading the round and CAI, Google, and Greenbelt Capital Partners participating.

As tech companies like Google rush to bolster their AI capabilities, they’ve embarked on a building spree so vast that experts expect new AI data centers might be underpowered by 2027. That has forced tech companies to invest in new sources of energy.

For the new project, a hypothetical 1 gigawatt-scale data center would be matched with an equivalent amount each of wind, solar, and battery storage, which would have enough capacity to last two to four hours, Bloomberg reported. Both the data center and the renewable power park would be connected to the same point on the grid. Google  said it will foot the bill for any required upgrades to the grid. 

The hope is that the arrangement would help the data centers and renewable power parks get connected quickly. There are 11,860 active requests in the U.S. from power producers wanting to connect with the grid, according to Interconnection.fyi. A total of 2.05 terawatts of capacity are waiting, nearly double what’s currently installed and connected. The majority of those are for solar and battery projects.

Google and Intersect will be taking a phased approach, with the first phase operational by 2026 and fully completed by 2027, highlighting the speed at which renewable power can be deployed.

That pace should put pressure on nuclear power startups and developers, all of which have longer timelines. The quickest nuclear project — Microsoft’s restarting of a reactor at Three Mile Island — is scheduled to come online in 2028. Google’s deal with small modular reactor startup Kairos has a 2030 deadline for the first of several power plants, while Amazon’s contract with SMR startup X-Energy is targeting the early 2030s. 

All of that assumes the projects proceed as planned and are completed on time, something that has so far eluded the nuclear power industry.



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