US colo developer Digital Realty has signed a deal with Current Hydro LLC for 500GWh of hydropower from three projects on the Ohio River.

Under the terms of the agreement, Digital Realty has agreed to purchase the energy and associated environmental attributes from the 19.99MW New Cumberland (Hancock County, West Virginia), 19.99MW Pike Island (Belmont County, Ohio), and 28.5MW Robert C. Byrd (Mason County, West Virginia) hydroelectric projects.

“This partnership with Digital Realty is a major milestone for Current Hydro,” said Jeremy King, CEO of Current Hydro. “By developing hydropower at existing dams in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way, we’re able to deliver long-term, dependable carbon free energy to the grid while creating lasting benefits for local communities in Ohio and West Virginia.”

The portfolio has a combined capacity of 68MW. It is expected to become operational in 2029, with the energy delivered into the PJM Interconnection market and directed to Digital Realty’s data center portfolio in Northern Virginia.

“Reliable, baseload renewable energy is essential to meeting the needs of our customers and achieving our climate goals,” said Aaron Binkley, vice president of sustainability at Digital Realty. “These agreements with Current Hydro underscore our commitment to sourcing high-quality, carbon-free energy in regions where we operate in scalable ways that allow us to support our customers while decarbonizing our operations.”

Current Hydro is a hydropower developer, owner, and operator that focuses on non-powered dams and optimizing run-of-river systems to deliver hydropower. The company, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, currently has six projects in its pipeline, including three contracted to supply power to Digital Realty.

While hydropower is commonly used to power data centers in certain areas, such as the Nordics, few data centers have signed direct supply agreements with hydroelectric power providers.

Digital has previously signed a hydroelectric deal in Germany. Digital Edge (Philippines), Iron Mountain (US), and Aruba (Italy) are other examples.

Google became one of the first hyperscalers to contract energy supply from hydropower earlier this year, after signing a 3GW hydroelectric deal with Brookfield in the US. The first contracts executed under the agreement are to offtake from Brookfield’s Holtwood and Safe Harbor hydroelectric facilities in Pennsylvania, representing more than $3 billion of power and 670MW of capacity in 20-year agreements.

Digital Realty has signed several renewable supply agreements in 2025 so far. Earlier this month, the company signed a 13.4MW solar deal in Illinois with Soltage.

Before this, in February, the company joined two 24/7 energy matching programs in Sweden and France.