Google to purchase 100% of output from the US’s largest under-construction BESS

Google has announced it will purchase all the power generated from the first two phases of Cypress Creek's Steel River Energy Center in Arkansas. The project comprises 1.6GW of solar paired with 1.9GWh of battery storage, with a potential third phase raising storage to 2.9GWh by 2029.

Power will flow to the grid via the utility Entergy Arkansas rather than directly to Google's facilities, offsetting load from existing and planned data centres nearby whilst serving Google’s clean power procurement needs via the power purchase agreement (PPA).

This deal demonstrates how data centre energy demand can drive renewable deployment. By securing clean energy offtakes at scale, gigawatts of power and storage can be quickly connected to grids to keep up with data centre power demands. It does, however, raise questions about whether these builds meaningfully firm grid reliability broadly or primarily serve corporate decarbonisation commitments.

“While hyperscalers have historically looked to gas to power new load additions, renewable PPAs such as this demonstrate the relevance of clean power to the incoming wave of data centre capacity," said Pete Tillotson, a senior BESS analyst at Benchmark.

Deployment speed advantage amid AI demand growth

Battery energy stationary storage (BESS) eases interconnection for large, inflexible new loads and is materially faster to deploy than gas peakers, nuclear, or transmission upgrades. This is a significant advantage given the pace of AI-driven demand growth, which is perhaps reflected in the US$3.5 billion in project financing underwritten by Barclays, BNP Paribas, Santander, and Wells Fargo. Their commitment demonstrates continued lender appetite for storage paired with solar despite the loss of federal tax credits and tariff volatility.

Of the 29 grid-scale energy projects in the US relating to data centres being tracked by Benchmark to date, Steel River is the third largest in the pipeline, with Sunstone Solar & Storage project in Oregon (~7.2GWh) and Pine Island data centre BESS in Minnesota (30GWh) being larger by energy storage capacity.

Benchmark recently published a Special Issue covering data centres and their impact on BESS and critical minerals: Gigawatt Ambitions: Data Centres, BESS, and the Race to Power.