6 unique ways we advanced energy solutions in 2024
Demand for electricity is rising across the world, driven by the rapid growth of manufacturing and AI, electrification of buildings and transportation, and the ongoing digitalization of our economy and society.
Meeting this growing demand is one of the key challenges of our time and an enormous opportunity to build a smarter energy system that benefits people everywhere. This year, we pursued a range of actions to procure more energy and drive new technological and market innovations — all with the aim of driving the systems change needed to meet growing electricity demand affordably, sustainably and reliably.
Here are six unique ways ways we made progress in 2024:
1. A new electricity rate model with utilities
Operating on carbon-free energy every hour of the day requires technologies like geothermal and nuclear power that can fill gaps in wind and solar generation. But these technologies are often costly and existing markets do not incentivize their development. That’s why we partnered with NV Energy to propose a new clean transition rate that brings corporate buyers and utilities together to unlock new investments. This will make it easier to develop projects that deliver “clean, firm” capacity to the grid while ensuring their costs aren’t passed along to other electricity consumers. This model can be replicated in additional markets, starting with Duke Energy, where we signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the development of a similar rate structure in their service territory.
2. Building clean energy in Asia Pacific
Bringing new clean energy online is particularly challenging in the Asia Pacific region, where wind and solar resources are not readily available in many markets. In addition to announcing long-term agreements for new clean energy capacity in the region, we partnered with BlackRock to develop a 1 GW pipeline of new solar capacity in Taiwan. Our investment in solar developer New Green Power will help meet Google’s electricity demand in Taiwan and allow us to offer some of this new capacity to our semiconductor suppliers and equipment manufacturers in the region. Through these nine projects in five countries across the region, this year we're proving it’s possible to turn challenges into opportunities in Asia Pacific.
3. Our first advanced nuclear deal
In addition to creating new mechanisms to accelerate advanced clean energy technologies, we are also supporting the companies developing these technologies and bringing them to market. Our new, first-of-its-kind partnership with Kairos Power will unlock up to 500 MW of new, clean power from a series of small modular nuclear reactors. Kairos Power’s passively safe system and iterative development approach will help bring down costs and ensure more communities can benefit from clean, reliable nuclear power.
4. Joining forces to scale reliable, advanced clean energy technologies
No company alone can advance new clean energy technologies at the speed and scale required to decarbonize global electricity systems. That’s why we launched a new initiative with Microsoft and Nucor to aggregate our demand for advanced, clean technologies like enhanced geothermal, long-duration energy storage, clean hydrogen, and advanced nuclear. These technologies are critical to achieving fully decarbonized, reliable electricity grids, but their early stage development requires significant upfront investment. By working together, large clean energy buyers can accelerate the investments and market innovations needed to scale these essential technologies.
5. Scaling procurement innovation to speed up clean energy deals
This year, we upscaled our first-of-its-kind process that dramatically accelerates the execution of power purchase agreements (PPAs) with clean energy developers. The results since we started using this process have been meaningful: we’ve signed contracts to purchase over 3.3 GW of new clean energy generation capacity across North America and Europe and we’ve cut the time required to negotiate and execute these PPAs by roughly 80%.
6. Reimagining how we power our data centers through co-location
We recently unveiled a novel strategic partnership with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate to co-locate data centers with new clean energy in the U.S. By thoughtfully building data center load next to new additional power generation where possible, we’ll reduce both the timeline to operation and the amount of new transmission required. This model is an important complement to efforts to unlock development of new transmission infrastructure and optimize utilization of the existing grid.
While the diverse range of actions we’ve taken this year have helped advance the next generation of energy solutions, there’s much more to be done. As we build on this year’s momentum in the years to come, we will continue to refine our approach and push for the innovations needed to create more reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy systems.
