Alphabet, Google's parent company, along with TPG Rise Climate and several other investors, have jointly injected over $800 million into clean energy developer Intersect Power. This announcement was officially made by Intersect Power on Tuesday.
This investment comes at a time when global demand for cloud computing is skyrocketing, especially with the cloud infrastructure driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies experiencing explosive growth. To respond to this trend, Google and other hyperscale companies such as Microsoft and Meta are competing to expand domestic data center capacities. The investment in Intersect Power is a crucial part of Google’s strategic deployment.
In addition to the financial investment, Google has also entered into a deep collaboration with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate to jointly develop industrial park projects. These parks will feature data centers with gigawatt-scale capacities, situated adjacent to newly constructed clean energy plants. This arrangement aims to provide stable and efficient energy supply to data centers by utilizing carbon-free energy sources, thereby alleviating grid constraints and accelerating the delivery of power generation and data center projects.
With the rapid advancement of technologies like generative AI, the U.S. power system is facing unprecedented challenges. The swift increase in energy demand is putting immense pressure on the nation's increasingly vulnerable grid. Google's collaboration with Intersect Power is designed to address this challenge by bringing new power generation capacity to the grid, meeting the growing load demands while enhancing the grid’s reliability and stability.
Google has stated that it will become the primary customer for the clean energy produced by Intersect Power’s new facilities and plans to immediately activate new data centers that utilize this clean energy. This move will enable the simultaneous launch of data centers and clean energy sources, significantly reducing operational timelines and improving overall efficiency.
It is reported that the first phase of the initial co-location project is expected to become operational in 2026, with the entire project slated for completion by 2027. The successful implementation of this project will provide Google and other partners with a stable and reliable supply of clean energy, further accelerating the rapid development of cloud computing and AI technologies.
As a portfolio company of TPG's climate-focused fund TPG Rise Climate, Intersect Power possesses substantial strength and extensive experience in the clean energy sector.