Google’s biggest clean power project is 40 miles north of xAI’s unpermitted gas power plant

Google said it has made its largest solar power and battery storage purchase to date. The first two phases of the project, located in Arkansas, will generate enough electricity to power about 6% of the state’s peak demand, the company said earlier this week.

Electricity from the project will flow directly to the grid, offsetting demand from Google’s data centers. Google is both investing in the project alongside developer Cypress Creek Energy and purchasing the entire output of the first two phases, adding 1 gigawatt of solar capacity and 1.9 gigawatt-hours of battery storage to its portfolio.

When completed, the three-phase project will be the largest solar facility in the United States, the companies said. The third and final phase of the project is scheduled to connect to the grid in 2029, bringing the power plant’s total capacity to about 1.8 gigawatts of solar and 2.9 gigawatt-hours of battery storage. Cypress Creek has secured $3.5 billion in financing to support the first two phases.

The Steel River Energy Center, as the project is called, will be located about 30 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. By pairing solar panels with large batteries, the power plant will be able to provide power to the grid all day, every day. It will also help Google in its quest to match its electricity use with clean power on an hourly basis, a stringent measure that should help bring more hybrid power plants to the grid.

Google’s decision to invest in a large solar and battery facility stands in contrast to xAI, which operates an unpermitted natural gas power plant about 40 miles to the south. 

Elon Musk has invested heavily in natural gas to power xAI’s Colossus data centers, despite running Tesla, which makes solar panels and grid-scale batteries. XAI is running nearly 60 natural gas turbines without federal clean air permits, according to a report from Reuters. Pollution from xAI’s power plant in Mississippi is affecting predominantly Black neighborhoods, Reuters found.

Musk is unlikely to change course. He recently purchased APR Energy, a project developer that specializes in modular natural gas power plants.

Google has also invested in natural gas, working with Crusoe to build a 933-megawatt power plant in West Texas, though that project has been something of an anomaly for the company, which has mostly relied on clean power to expand its portfolio. Given the speed with which projects like Steel River can be deployed — nearly 2 gigawatts of solar capacity in three years — it’s likely that Google will continue to invest in renewables and batteries.