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Tech giant Google has agreed to purchase electricity from Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a Massachusetts-based company developing a first-of-its-kind nuclear fusion power plant. This agreement marks the “first direct power purchase agreement in history” between a customer and a fusion energy company, according to both parties.
Google’s head of advanced energy, Michael Terrell, explained that the tech giant aims to leverage its purchasing power to signal market confidence in fusion technology. He stated, “There’s a role for corporate buyers like us to help advance these technologies and help get them to commercial scale.”
The deal involves Google buying 200 megawatts of power from CFS. In addition, Google has increased its investment in CFS, which has raised approximately $2 billion since spinning off from MIT in 2018.
CFS plans to deliver power to the grid by the early 2030s from a fusion power facility scheduled for construction in Chesterfield County, Virginia. This location is near “data center alley” in northern Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers.
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) requires vast amounts of energy. Analysts project that within a few years, data centers could consume up to 12 percent of all electricity produced in the U.S. Many Big Tech companies have ambitious climate goals to eliminate their greenhouse gas emissions and rely on clean sources for growing energy demand.
However, AI’s rapid growth has pushed up the sector’s carbon pollution. Google’s latest sustainability report, released recently, shows an 11 percent increase in total emissions from 2023 to 2024.
In the near term, Terrell said, Google is ramping up purchases of wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources. Last year, the company contracted more than 8 gigawatts of clean energy. These clean power purchases helped reduce emissions from data centers last year despite increased overall energy consumption.
Google is also making longer-term investments in emerging clean technologies such as enhanced geothermal, a new generation of small modular nuclear reactors, and—what some consider the holy grail of carbon-free power—nuclear fusion.
Nuclear fusion differs from fission, which generates current nuclear power by splitting atoms. Fusion mimics what happens in the sun, where light atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, releasing energy. If this process could be scaled up, it could provide virtually limitless clean energy.
While recent breakthroughs in laboratory research are promising, commercial application of fusion faces significant challenges related to scaling and deploying unproven technology. CFS co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard noted that Google’s support will help overcome these hurdles. He stated, “This is about how we work together to really pull fusion energy all the way through from the lab to the market.”
Without bold action and setting clear goals, achieving commercial-scale fusion would be difficult.
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