Feb 24 (Reuters) – AES Corp said on Tuesday it has signed a 20-year agreement with Google to supply power to the U.S. tech giant’s new data center planned in Wilbarger County, Texas.
AES said it has also signed deals for energy generation that will be co-located with the new data center and enable Google to expand its operations to meet demand for its core services.
Shares of the utility rose 1.2% in premarket trade.
U.S. utilities are racing to sign supply deals with data-center operators as the artificial-intelligence boom sparks a surge in power demand. The demand has, however, stoked concerns about rising customer power bills.
Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s global head of Data Center Energy, said the deal would bring new clean generation online alongside the facility, reducing strain on the local grid and helping keep energy costs in check.
To date, AES has signed deals for nearly 12 gigawatt of energy with data center customers, 9 GW of these are power purchase agreements directly with hyperscalers.
AES said it will build the necessary shared electricity infrastructure for the co-located facility.
(Reporting by Katha Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo and Shailesh Kuber)
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