Google has reached a $3bn deal to access hydroelectric power from Brookfield’s renewables arm, part of a race to secure clean energy to meet booming power demand from cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
The two 20-year power purchase agreements, the largest of their kind for hydropower, will first deliver up to a total of 670 megawatts of power from Brookfield’s Holtwood and Safe Harbor facilities in Pennsylvania, which the asset manager acquired in 2015 and 2014, respectively.
Google will have the option of procuring power from a total of 3 gigawatts worth of hydroelectric assets through future projects, including upgrading hydro installations. Power from these facilities that is not required by the tech giant will be funnelled to electricity markets across the US.