The tech giant’s latest project pairs massive renewable energy capacity with a 100-hour battery to support data center operations.
US tech giant Google announced on Tuesday that it will build a new data center in Pine Island, Minnesota.The new facility will be powered by 1.9 gigawatts of clean energy from wind and solar, coupled with a 300-megawatt battery, claimed to be the ‘world’s largest’, with a 30-gigawatt-hour capacity and 100-hour duration.
Google is currently working with Xcel Energy to build 1.4 GW of wind power and 200 MW of solar power, both of which will feed Form Energy’s battery, helping the new data center operate on clean energy for longer periods.The new facility will be Google’s first in Minnesota, and about an hour southeast of Minneapolis.With the scale of storage products currently underway in China and other geographies, it’s difficult to verify if the 30 GWh figure is indeed the ‘world’s largest’. However, the planned battery would dwarf a 19 GW lithium-ion project in the UAE.How does the long-duration battery work?Long-duration batteries help data centers function smoothly during nights or lulls, unlike grid-scale lithium-ion batteries, which do the same, but for shorter periods.Form Energy’s batteries work very differently from most large batteries today. Instead of using lithium like the batteries in electric cars, they store electricity by making iron rust and then reversing the rusting process to release the energy when needed.When oxygen from the air passes over small pieces of iron inside the battery, the iron rusts and produces electricity. To recharge the battery, an electric current removes the oxygen from the rust, turning it back into iron and releasing it again.Form’s iron-air batteries are heavier and less efficient than their counterparts; they can only return about 50% to 70% of the energy used to charge them, while lithium-ion batteries return more than 90%.However, Form’s batteries have one distinct advantage. They are cheaper than lithium-ion batteries, costing about $20 per kilowatt-hour of storage, which is almost three times as cheap.Solar and wind power are widely used, but Form’s iron-air batteries are still a new technology. The company’s first battery is now being installed in Minnesota with Great River Energy. It will store 150 MWh of electricity and can supply to the grid for up to 100 hours, delivering about 1.5 MW at peak output.Developing the conceptThe project also introduces an unusual utility fee system to Minnesota. This system is designed to help power companies invest in clean energy without running afoul of regulators, who typically want them to choose the cheapest electricity options.To speed up clean energy projects without raising residents’ electricity bills, Google and Xcel Energy created a new contract type in Minnesota called the Clean Energy Accelerator Charge . It follows a similar model to the Clean Transition Tariff that Google previously developed with NV Energy.As part of the CEAC deal, Google will inject $50 million to support Xcel’s Capacity Connect program, which will install many smaller batteries across the grid to increase power capacity and make the system more reliable.Google revealed its partnership with Xcel Energy has demonstrated a new way to power data centers while promoting cleaner, more affordable energy for local communities.
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