Google is building a data centre in Pine Island, Minnesota.
Under a new agreement with Xcel Energy, the company will fund 1,900 megawatts (1.9GW) of new clean energy for the grid - 1.4GW of wind, 200MW of solar, and a 300MW iron-air battery installation from Form Energy rated for up to 100 hours of storage, the largest long-duration battery project by gigawatt-hour capacity announced to date.
Google will cover all transmission infrastructure costs, protecting existing Xcel ratepayers from bill increases - a structure it previously used with NV Energy in Nevada via the Clean Transition Tariff.
The renewable energy funded under the deal serves the broader grid rather than a ring-fenced corporate supply, and the agreement includes a $50 million contribution to Xcel's Capacity*Connect distributed battery program.
Xcel's current carbon-free energy mix sits at 70%.
The announcement coincides with some uncomfortable figures from Google's own reporting.
The company's 2025 Environmental Report showed Scope 3 emissions - primarily supply chain - rose 22% in 2024, pushing combined emissions up 11% year-on-year to 11.5 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
Data centre electricity consumption was up 27% in 2024, driven by AI workloads, and Google's 24/7 carbon-free energy score moved from 64% to 66%.
Google has not disclosed Pine Island's power draw, construction timeline, or which workloads the facility will support.
Minnesota's legislature is currently debating tighter transparency requirements for data centre development, and the agreement still requires sign-off from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.
