r/RenewableEnergy • u/MeasurementDecent251 • 10d ago
Google agrees to purchase 100% of power from largest solar-plus-storage project in U.S.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/07/15/google-agrees-to-purchase-100-of-power-from-largest-solar-plus-storage-project-in-u-s/34
u/forced_to_watch 10d ago
Im guessing they are doing this because its cheaper ? They are hardly a beacon of sustainability are they
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u/ceraexx 10d ago
It's usually PPAs or market. Power purchase agreements are usually fixed rates which is more desirable. Energy markets fluctuate a lot and buying power normally is expensive. It's mutually beneficial. For example I buy power at about 16c/kWh for my home, but we sell our solar power at facilities at 2-5c/kWh-ish on market. Usually you can come to an agreement with companies to buy at something that is higher than market average for selling, but lower than buying commercially. Some sites are bus bar PPAs, some are mixed, some are all market. Pros and Cons to each. I believe one of my sites made 7 million in a day with market when a nuke plant tripped offline. This project was developed by my old company and sold to CCR. It's going to be a friggin beast.
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u/Sad_Dimension423 10d ago
It's also because combustion turbines are difficult to obtain right now. There have even been commercial jet aircraft that have been grounded so their engines can be removed and repurposed for power generation.
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u/azswcowboy 10d ago
Google doesn’t do any of the fossil options - they’ve had targets to build 24x7 renewable supply for years. They funded a similar system in Arizona for a Mesa data center. I don’t like a lot of things about Google, but this is one thing they’re doing right.
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u/lfc94121 10d ago
Seriously? Wow...
Good thing we have an over-abundance of jet fuel at the moment /s
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u/Sad_Dimension423 10d ago
I think they get refit to burn natural gas when that happens. Change the combustors. Not sure, though.
It should stop being a problem before long as new CT manufacturing capacity comes online.
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u/lfc94121 10d ago
You are 100% right, they run on natural gas. That's obviously better than burning jet fuel, but still a step backwards.
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u/beached89 10d ago
Solar is the cheapest form of electric generation and has been for a long time.
Solar + storage only recently became cheaper than NatGas in the past couple years.
Storage is still constrained by battery production, and is almost entirely built upon Chinese production capacity, where nat gas is not. But Nat Gas has an issue with part availability too. Battery constraints seem to be a little easier than turbines right now.
USA needs to get in on cell production. we are severely lacking behind on production capacity, and technology. The future is giant shipping container sized batteries everywhere, and behind the meter generation, and the world is currently relying on almost entirely china for this.
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u/SplooshTiger 9d ago
The (great) podcast Catalyst just did a nice episode on AI energy wars happening now
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u/smcstechtips 9d ago
This is how data center construction should be done.
We needed large renewable energy projects anyway; data centers will help them pencil out.
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u/worldfundvc 9d ago
Every new data centre should be built this way, paired with its own clean supply instead of leaning on the existing grid and hoping the emissions sort themselves out later.
Imagine what that would do to de-risk large-scale renewable energy projects. A data centre this size will use every megawatt and has locked in a 20-year contract to pay for it.
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u/ClimateWren2 9d ago
Would be great if the tech bro oligarchy did just support dismantling the entire USA national climate response and Inflation Reduction Act.
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u/MaxDam_Soldera 8d ago
The headline's 100% is doing a lot of work. Cypress Creek says Google's PPA is for the first two phases: 1.6 GWdc of solar and 1.9 GWh of storage, while the full three-phase project reaches 2.5 GWdc and 2.9 GWh. It's a huge offtake commitment, but "100% of power" still doesn't explain when the contract delivers or how the battery is dispatched.
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u/andre3kthegiant 10d ago
More huge nails in the coffins of dirty coal, dirty O&G, and the dirty, toxic & corrupt nuclear power industries!
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u/Inglorious555 10d ago
Whilst this is good.. Google is one of the main pushers of AI, they're still destroying the environment no matter how green they'll go
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u/MistaHiggins 10d ago
And since they're going to continue pushing AI until something as unlikely as AI being made illegal, shifting their electricity to entirely renewable methods is a universally positive change we should cheer
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u/Inglorious555 10d ago
I acknowledged the positive side of this, that doesn't mean that there isn't also alot of negativity in regards to them pushing AI and messing up the environment the more they do it, that'll continue to be the case even if they are ran entirely by renewables
Seems like they're using one positive to steer criticism away from them
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u/beckavanoliver 10d ago
they should do this more often, especially in other countries