Feb 9 (Reuters) – French oil major TotalEnergies on Monday signed two long-term deals to supply solar power to Google’s data centres in Texas, as it looks to tap rising electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence.
Total will deliver 1 gigawatt of capacity – equivalent to 28 terawatt-hours of renewable power over 15 years – from two Texas sites owned by the group that are due to begin construction in the second quarter.
The company has bucked the trend among oil majors by continuing to invest in renewable energy alongside gas-fired power plants, expanding its power business in deregulated markets where price volatility can create attractive trading opportunities, including the ERCOT market in Texas.
Marc-Antoine Pignon, Total’s vice president for U.S. renewables, said the deals mark the largest volume of renewable power purchase agreements TotalEnergies has ever signed in the United States.
Total already indirectly supplies Google with power via its 50% stake in California-based renewables company Clearway, which recently signed deals worth 1.2 GW to supply data centres in three U.S. power markets.
“Our agreement with TotalEnergies adds necessary new generation to the local system, boosting the amount of affordable and reliable power supply available to serve the entire region,” Will Conkling, Google’s director of clean energy and power, said in a statement.
(Reporting by Mateusz Rabiega and America Hernandez, Editing by Louise Heavens)
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