Google has signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to procure the output of a solar farm in Texas.
Renewable energy firm X-Elio this week announced it has signed a deal that will see the search giant offtake from X-Elio’s 128MW Bell Solar PV Plant.
The solar farm is expected to start operations in the second half of 2025. The site will also include a 100MW battery energy storage system to provide energy demand support on a 24/7 basis.
X-Elio said the agreement will consist of a physical PPA which, through a shared network, will enable the direct delivery of power to Google.
Mirko Molinari, CCO of X-Elio, said: “The PPA between Google and X-ELIO exemplifies our commitment to embracing the sustainability needs of the organizations we support. We are honored to collaborate with world-class partners such as Google and to join our paths to create a greener and more sustainable future”
Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center energy at Google, added: “Google is committed to powering our data centers, cloud regions, and offices around the world with 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. We are excited to take part in this new agreement with X-Elio that will expand our carbon-free energy portfolio and supply our operations in Texas with clean power."
Corio continued: This agreement is a strong example of how executing PPAs more efficiently through our new scalable procurement approach evolves the way the industry sells and purchases power, and accelerates the buildout of carbon-free electricity.”
A Brookfield-owned company, X-Elio specializes in the development, construction, financing, and operation of renewable energy projects.
The company's development pipeline totals more than 11GW across the US, Spain, Italy, Latin America, the Middle East, Japan, and Australia.
Google is a major purchaser of renewable energy and is moving towards 24/7 energy matching for its operations.
So far in 2024, Google has signed PPAs in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Singapore, Japan, Nevada, Indiana, Texas, and Arizona.
The company has also announced investments into carbon capture and put out an RFP for innovative energy generation technologies. It recently acquired a stake in a Taiwanese solar firm.
Google recently announced a $1bn investment plan to expand its Dallas data centers, adding that it had signed 375MW in solar PPAs to support its operations in the Lone Star State. X-Elio was named among the renewable providers but details weren't provided.
Google first built a data center in the Midlothian area of Dallas, Texas, in 2019. The company filed plans to develop a fourth building at the campus earlier this year. The company is also developing a second Texas campus in the Red Oak area of Dallas.
Google launched a Texas cloud region in Dallas in June 2022.
