Google is in the process of securing power sources in advance for a new round of data center expansion. According to the agreement announced on Tuesday, the company will purchase 396 megawatts of electricity from the geothermal energy company Fervo at their Cape Station power station in Utah, USA, to support a planned new data center in the area.
This power station is expected to be put into operation in 2028. According to the agreement, Google also has the option to purchase an additional 600 megawatts of electricity before June 2030. If all these arrangements are carried out subsequently, the scale of cooperation between the two parties will continue to expand.
Corresponding to the power consumption requirements of the AI data center
This transaction reflects that large cloud computing companies are continuously seeking new sources of power. As the training and inference demands for AI increase, data centers' reliance on stable power supply has significantly grown, making power acquisition a key factor in tech companies' expansion of their infrastructure.
Google has been a major buyer of clean energy in the United States for many years, with its procurement covering wind power, photovoltaic, and energy storage projects to support its goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2030. However, in April of this year, Google signed a 933-megawatt natural gas power agreement with data center developer Crusoe in Texas, which puts more pressure on its emission reduction targets.
In contrast, the latest geothermal procurement is seen as an arrangement by Google to maintain a proportion of clean energy while expanding the computing power of AI.
Fervo Project still has room for expansion
Fervo has currently been approved to develop up to 2 gigawatts of geothermal power generation capacity at Cape Station. However, company executives previously stated that third-party engineering assessments suggest that the thermal reserves at this location could potentially support power generation on a scale approximately twice that amount.
If the project ultimately expands to 4 gigawatts, its scale would be nearly equivalent to doubling the current geothermal power generation capacity in the United States. A recent report by the U.S. Department of Energy also mentioned that enhanced geothermal technologies can tap into deeper heat sources, theoretically allowing for a significant expansion of the geothermal power generation potential available in the United States.
Google and Fervo have been cooperating for many years.
Google and Fervo are not new to collaboration. The two companies have been working together for over five years, and Google is also one of the early electricity purchasers for Fervo. During the round of financing prior to Fervo's listing, Google also participated in the investment.
In terms of the capital market, on the first day of trading, the stock price of Fervo rose, but then lost some of that gain in the following months. Driven by this news of Google power procurement, the stock price of Fervo increased by about 30% on the previous trading day, followed by some profit-taking.
