Google Backs Clean Energy Firm To Power AI Data Center Expansion

US-based clean energy company, Intersect Power recently partnered with Google and TPG Rise Climate (TPG) to provide renewable power and storage solutions to new data centers. This partnership is designed to deliver gigawatts of new data center capacity across the US with Intersect Power catalyzing a targeted $20 billion in renewable power infrastructure investment by the end of the decade. Intersect Power began financing the partnerships with its first co-located clean energy project. This project is expected to be operational in 2026 and fully complete by 2027.

This ‘power-first’ approach to data center development represents an evolved model to increase the speed of infrastructure deployment, easing grid burden, and improving overall reliability and affordability for energy customers. By co-locating data center load with large amounts of high capacity factor, low-cost, clean electricity, and added battery storage, data centers can achieve high percentages of renewable energy while reducing the transmission required to connect generation to load over longer distances.

Clean Energy Partnership

Under the terms of the partnership, Intersect Power will build new clean energy assets, with Google providing offtake via newly constructed data center campuses as an anchor tenant in co-located industrial parks. Once built, the Google data center would come online alongside its own clean power, bringing new generation capacity to the grid to meet the load.

To further its vision throughout the US, Intersect Power also announced a more than $800 million funding round led by TPG Rise Climate and Google, with participation from Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC acted as financial advisor on the transaction.

In close coordination with grid planners, operators, and communities, the companies will continue to develop local clean energy resources that support rural economic development for both landowners and the local community through job creation, increased tax revenue, and support of local non-profit organizations.

“This partnership is an evolution of the way hyperscalers and power providers have previously worked together. We can and are developing innovative solutions to expand data center capacity while reducing the strain on the grid,” said Sheldon Kimber, CEO and Founder of Intersect Power.

“To realize AI’s potential, the growth in electricity demand must be met with new, clean power sources. The scale of AI presents an opportunity to completely rethink data center development — by co-locating them where possible with the grid-connected carbon-free energy that keeps them up and running,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, Global Head of Data Center Energy at Google. He added, “We hope to replicate this model in multiple markets across the US and around the world.”

“Meeting the energy and computing demands of our next-generation economy is necessitating the development of new models and partnerships,” said Jim Coulter, Executive Chairman of TPG and a Managing Partner of TPG Rise Climate. “By aligning capital, innovation, and ambition, we expect this partnership to achieve unprecedented scale at our first co-located project, and we have set ourselves on a course to deliver several more large-scale co-located data centers and clean energy power plants across the US,” added Ed Beckley, a Managing Partner of TPG Rise Climate.