Google's new Minnesota data center comes with the world's largest battery-and won't raise electric bills

"Google has long been committed to scaling our infrastructure responsibility, which includes paying for the electricity and associated costs of our growth. Investing in the systems that make our communities more resilient is table stakes for us."

"To support the data center, which will be built in the small town of Pine Island, Google inked an agreement with the local utility Xcel Energy to fund 1,900 megawatts of new clean energy. It's similar to an approach that Google took in Nevada to pay for a geothermal power plant from Fervo, a company with next-generation technology that otherwise would have been too expensive to add to the grid."

"The battery, from a startup called Form Energy, uses iron-air technology to help store renewable energy longer. The company describes it as reversibly rusting iron: The iron reacts with oxygen to store and release energy, with storage lasting 100 hours."

Google is building a data center in Pine Island, Minnesota, and taking responsibility for its energy demands by funding 1,900 megawatts of clean power through an agreement with Xcel Energy. The project includes 1,400 megawatts of wind power, 200 megawatts of solar power, and a groundbreaking battery from Form Energy using iron-air technology. This battery can store energy for 100 hours and will deliver 300 megawatts of power with 30 gigawatt-hours of storage capacity, making it the world's largest by capacity. This approach prevents existing customers from bearing increased electricity costs while advancing grid resilience and renewable energy technology.

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