With support from Google, one of the largest solar projects in the USA is opening in Texas

One of the largest solar projects in the U.S. opened Friday in Texas, backed by what Google said was the company’s largest solar power purchase ever.

Google CEO Ben Sloss said at the ribbon cutting about two hours south of Dallas that the company has a responsibility to bring renewable, carbon-free electricity online while opening businesses that use that power. Google expects to spend $16 billion globally on purchasing clean energy by 2040, he said.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who was in attendance, said the solar project was a flagship of the government’s efforts to incentivize manufacturers and developers to locate energy projects in the US

“When you’re in the middle of the story, sometimes it’s hard to tell because you’re in the middle of it,” she said. “But I’m telling you right now that we are in the middle of history being written.”

SB Energy built three solar farms next to each other in Buckholts, Texas, the “Orion Solar Belt”. Together they will be able to deliver 875 megawatts of clean energy. That’s almost the size of a typical nuclear power plant. Overall, Google has struck a deal with clean energy developers to bring more than 2,800 megawatts of new wind and solar projects to the state, which it says exceeds the amount of electricity needed to operate there.

Google, Amazon and Microsoft have all recently announced investments in nuclear energy to power data centers as well, as the tech giants look for new sources of carbon-free electricity to meet 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 Google nor other major companies are meeting those commitments with the advent of artificial intelligence.

The International Energy Agency predicts that total electricity consumption by data centers could reach more than 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026, more than doubling from 2022. Estimates suggest that one terawatt-hour can power 70,000 homes for a year.

Electricity demand is also growing worldwide as buildings and vehicles are electrified. Last year, people used 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% 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 is fed into the state power grid. Thousands of sheep graze in the area and maintain the vegetation around the solar systems.

“This project consisted of a spreadsheet and a series of emails that I exchanged, as well as a series of approvals and so on. And then you come over that hill over there and you see it lying in front of you and it kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Because there’s this huge array of solar arrays,” Sloss said during the ceremony. “And we actually did it together. This is amazing.”

SB Energy said most solar farm components are made in the United States and that is only possible because the climate change law, officially known as the Inflation Reduction Act, spurs clean energy production. The company expects that the projects will be the first to be eligible for an additional tax credit that the law provides for the use of domestic content.

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