Will Google Partnership Speed Up Power Project Development?

Google is at the heart of a three-pronged partnership that it hopes will break down some of the energy barriers that are slowing AI’s journey towards carbon neutrality.

The global technology company is joining forces with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate to tightly couple data centre growth with clean power generation.

The three parties hope that, by thoughtfully building data centre load next to new additional power generation, it will reduce the operational timeline and the amount of new transmission required.

How it will work

The partnership is announced in a blog written by Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google, who says it will “synchronise new clean power generation with data centre growth in a novel way”.

Ruth adds that it will “enable US leadership in AI development”.

The project will see Google, Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate develop industrial parks with gigawatts of data centre capacity in the US, co-located with new clean energy plants to power them.

Ruth says: “The first phase of the first co-located clean energy project is expected to be operational by 2026 and fully complete in 2027.”

She also reveals that Google, TPG Rise Climate and other investors are making a capital investment in Intersect Power.

Why is the partnership necessary?

Robert Little, Sustainability Strategy Lead – gTech, Google, writing on LinkedIn, explains that there is an urgent need to speed up the time it takes to get power projects operational.

He says: “More than four years — that's how long it takes to build power projects in the US, more than double the time it took just 15 years ago.

“This lag in electricity grid planning, coupled with the urgent need for sustainable solutions, presents a significant challenge to economic growth, especially with AI's potential to add over a trillion dollars annually to US GDP by 2030.”

Ruth adds: “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.”

Ruth points to a number of benefits from harnessing the power of AI, sustainability and swiftly. They include:

• Economists estimate the GDP uplift of AI in the US could be in excess of a trillion dollars annually by 2030
• The upside from two additional catalysts for the US economy and job creation: onshoring of manufacturing operations and the electrification of the transport, heating and cooling sectors

She adds: “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.”

Jim Coulter, Executive Chairman of TPG and Managing Partner of TPG Rise Climate, says: “The convergence of two megatrends – decarbonisation and digitisation – is creating unique opportunities for innovative partnerships.

“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 capitalise on this opportunity, we are committed to delivering carbon-free data centres at lower cost and greater scale.”

Working together

America’s electricity grid planning and investment are lagging behind the country’s economic growth, Ruth continues.

“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.”

The partnership will see Intersect Power build new clean energy assets in regions and projects of interest, while Google will be able to provide power offtake as an anchor tenant in the co-located industrial park that would support data centre development.

Ruth says: “Once built, this means the Google data centre 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.”

Robert adds: “This innovative approach: synchronises clean power generation with data centre growth, ensuring reliable and carbon-free energy for AI; reduces the timeline to operation by bringing data centres online alongside their dedicated power source; minimises the need for new transmission infrastructure by building where power is generated.

“This strategy not only accelerates the transition to a carbon-free future for AI but also helps alleviate grid constraints and improve overall reliability.”

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