Google has signed a new renewable energy agreement to power its operations in Mesa, Arizona.
“Today, we’re announcing an energy supply agreement with Salt River Project (SRP) to support more than 430MW of new-to-the-grid, carbon-free energy capacity in the state,” Google said this week.
“Our current projections indicate the agreement will help our operations in Arizona reach at least 80 percent carbon-free energy (CFE) on an hourly basis by 2026.”
The search and cloud company said the new agreement includes a mix of dedicated wind power, solar energy, and battery storage from three facilities operated by NextEra Energy Resources on SRP’s power grid in Arizona: the Sonoran Solar Energy Center, Storey Energy Center, and Babbitt Ranch Energy Center.
Google’s Mesa data center will be operational in 2025. The company broke ground on the project last year.
“We're aiming for every Google campus to operate on clean electricity every hour of every day by 2030, including in Arizona where we are excited to put down roots with our first data center in the state currently under construction,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center energy, Google.
“The collaboration with Salt River Project and NextEra is accelerating decarbonization in Arizona and our own carbon-free journey in the region.”
In its own announcement, Salt River announced the Sonoran Solar Energy Center is now online. Located south of Buckeye, the 260MW solar facility has the ability to charge a one gigawatt-hour (GWh) battery energy storage system and is reportedly Arizona’s largest operational battery energy storage system.
Energy not needed by the data center will be used to meet other SRP customer needs.
“SRP and the Valley are fortunate to have sustainability-focused organizations like Google located here who help accelerate the transition to carbon-free power resources,” said Bobby Olsen, chief planning, strategy, and sustainability officer at SRP.
The Storey Energy Center is an 88MW solar and battery storage system located in Coolidge, Arizona. The Babbitt Ranch Energy Center is a 161MW wind project, on Babbitt Ranches property in Coconino County, north of Flagstaff.
"These renewable energy centers will generate low-cost, homegrown energy and provide millions of dollars in additional revenue to both Maricopa and Pinal counties over the life of the projects," added Anthony Pedroni, VP of renewables and storage development at NextEra Energy Resources.
2024 has seen Google sign Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Poland.
Salt River has previously signed an energy deal with Meta; NextEra has signed deals with CyrusOne, Element Critical, Cyxtera (since combined with Evoque), and Meta.
Google's upcoming Mesa facility, which has been in the works since 2019, will span 750,000 square feet (70,000 sqm) once fully built out on 187 acres of farmland on the northwest corner of Elliot and Sossaman roads. The first 288,530 sq ft (26,805 sqm) phase is reportedly due live in July 2025, and set for full build-out across three phases by 2030.
