Google has signed more than 1.5GW worth of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in the last 12 months.
The company said that figure was bought through a new PPA procurement process developed in partnership with LevelTen Energy, which has now been released via the energy broker.
In March 2023, Google announced it had developed a new Request for Proposal (RFP) system in partnership with LevelTen to reduce the time required to sign a PPA.
In a recent blog post, the search and cloud company said that within one year of introducing this new approach to the market, Google had signed PPAs for more than 1.5GW of clean energy capacity in North America and Europe.
The framework Google and LevelTen developed – known as the LevelTen Energy Accelerated Process [LEAP] – is now available to other companies. LevelTen said LEAP has reduced the timeline of a traditional RFP and PPA negotiation process from the typical 12 months or longer down to about 100 days.
“LEAP is helping advance our 2030 company-wide goal to run all our data centers on carbon-free energy, every hour of every day,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center energy at Google. “We shared a vision with LevelTen to develop a smarter, more efficient way of doing business in the clean energy industry, and the result has been just that. The approach has already proven a success in both domestic and international markets, and we look forward to expanding the scope soon.”
As part of the announcement, Google announced a 100MW solar PPA with Cubico Sustainable Investments; the output will contribute towards Google’s data center campus in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
“Leaning on our risk-balanced PPA template, developed with feedback from LevelTen and the market, we quickly agreed on common contract provisions with Cubico. LevelTen’s click-through UI helped us finalize project-specific terms, and we landed a final agreement within weeks, instead of months,” Google said.
A previously announced PPA with EDPR's Kronos Solar in the Netherlands was also a quick process. Google said within days of closing the RFP, the company quickly moved to project selection, and had a signature-ready PPA within two weeks. In total, only 82 days passed between RFP launch and contract execution.
“LevelTen and Google have issued and completed multiple LEAP procurements together in both North America and Europe,” LevelTen said in its own announcement. “We’ve closed PPAs via LEAP with multinational and small developers, and with owner-operators, including in one of the hardest non-liquid markets: the Netherlands. Going forward, Google plans to transact via LEAP at scale, particularly in wholesale markets where it is relatively easy to structure conventional PPAs.”
“In this industry, we know that time kills deals,” added Rob Collier, LevelTen Energy’s SVP of transactions. “Renewable energy transactions need to scale quickly, we can't wait any longer. There's no reason PPAs need to take a year to get done."
2023 saw Google sign a number of PPAs as it looks to shift from blanket off-setting to 24/7 energy matching, including with EDPR in the Netherlands, as well as with Luminus in Belgium and Eneco in the Netherlands, and Power Capital Renewable Energy in Ireland.
In the US the company last year signed another solar deal with EDPR totaling 650MW as well as with Ørsted in Texas, with Sol Systems for projects in North & South Carolina, and Apex Clean Energy in North Carolina.
2024 has so far seen Google sign Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, and Arizona. The company has also announced investments into carbon capture and put out an RFP for innovative energy generation technologies.
24x7 PPAs ensure that any clean energy paid for is matched by metered electricity used by a large consumer; Google is moving to 24/7 PPAs.
