Google plans $17 billion Wyoming data center backed by 702 MW fuel-cell plant

Google said on Thursday, Nov. 5, that it is building its first data center in Wyoming with a long-term $17 billion investment designed to deliver lasting benefits for Laramie County families and businesses.

The company said it is partnering with Tallgrass Energy, Black Hills Energy, American Electric Power (AEP) and Related Digital. “We will pay for 100% of the power we use, and when we build data centers, we’ll cover the infrastructure needs directly driven by our growth,” Google wrote.

The project is contracted with AEP for what Google called a first-of-its-kind, commercial-scale, 702 MW fuel-cell development with carbon capture and storage, and the largest planned development of its kind to date. The fuel cells will convert natural gas into electricity and will be made in America by Bloom Energy, Google said. CCS is meant to capture and permanently store a large majority of the project’s carbon emissions at Tallgrass’s nearby Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub. Google said the deal brings its total contracted CCS capacity to nearly 1 gigawatt.

Google said it is also sourcing power from gas generators operated by Tallgrass Energy and Black Hills Energy, and is conducting a front-end engineering and design study on fitting Tallgrass’s combined-cycle turbines with CCS. The Wyoming data center will be air-cooled “to minimize strain on local water resources,” Google said.

Reuters reported that Alphabet’s Google is pushing ahead with the Wyoming campus as political resistance to data center expansion grows after the U.S. midterm elections. Of 41 data center-related ballot measures voted on this week, all but one went against data centers, Ballotpedia found, Reuters said. AI Tech Daily previously covered how data center opponents emerged as big midterm winners in Texas and Georgia.

Google said it hosted a community meeting in downtown Cheyenne and spoke with more than 200 Laramie County residents. It expects the project to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in local property taxes for Laramie County and School District 1, and said it is standing up a Community Council with its partners and Bloom Energy.

Google has not posted a full construction timetable on its blog. WyoFile said the company’s buildout timeframe was unclear as of Thursday. Google’s broader power strategy has included a 3.6 GW deal with Constellation that funds nuclear uprates.

Bloomberg also reported the $17 billion Wyoming plan; its full story remains paywalled and was not bypassed.

Google plans $17 billion Wyoming data center backed by 702 MW fuel-cell plant

Sources