One of the largest solar projects in the U.S. opened Friday in Texas, backed by what Google called the largest solar purchase ever.
Google CEO Ben Sloss said at the opening ceremony about two hours south of Dallas that the company has a responsibility to bring renewable, carbon-free electricity online at the same time it starts operations that will use that energy. Google expects to spend $16 billion globally through 2040 to buy clean energy, he said.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who was in attendance, said the solar project is a poster child for the government’s efforts to incentivize manufacturers and developers to build energy projects in the U.S.
“Sometimes it’s hard to say when you’re in the middle of history, because you’re in the middle of it,” she said. “But I’m telling you now, we’re in the middle of history being made.”
SB Energy built three solar farms side by side, the “Orion Solar Belt,” in Buckholts, Texas. Together, they can provide 875 megawatts of clean energy. That’s nearly the size of a typical nuclear power plant. In total, Google has signed contracts with clean energy developers to bring more than 2,800 megawatts of new wind and solar projects to the state, which Google says exceeds the amount of power it needs to power its operations there.
Google, Amazon and Microsoft have also all recently announced investments in nuclear power to power data centers, as the tech giants look for new sources of carbon-free electricity to meet the rising demand from data centers and artificial intelligence. Google has committed to sourcing all of its electricity without contributing to climate change, regardless of the time of day or whether the sun is shining, but neither it nor other major companies are meeting those commitments with the rise of artificial intelligence.
The International Energy Agency predicts that total electricity consumption by data centers could exceed 1,000 terawatt hours in 2026, more than double the 2022 figure. Estimates suggest that one terawatt hour could power 70,000 homes for a year.
Demand for power is also growing worldwide as buildings and vehicles increasingly go electric. Last year, people consumed more electricity than ever before, straining power grids around the world.
In August, Google said it planned to invest more than $1 billion in Texas this year to support its cloud and data center infrastructure.
Google will use about 85 percent of the project’s solar power for data centers in Ellis County and for cloud computing in the Dallas area. In Ellis County, Google operates a data center campus in Midlothian and is building a new campus in Red Oak. The rest of the solar power will go to the state’s power grid. Thousands of sheep graze the area and maintain vegetation around the climate
“This project was a spreadsheet and a series of emails that I had exchanged and a bunch of approvals and so forth. And then you come over the hill there and you see it laid out in front of you and it takes your breath away, right? Because there’s this huge field of solar panels,” Sloss said at the ceremony. “And we really did this collectively. That’s great.”
SB Energy said most of the solar farm components will be made in the United States, a move made possible only because the climate law, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, has boosted clean energy production. The company expects the projects to be the first to qualify for an additional tax credit the law offers for domestic content.