At Google, we advance a broad portfolio of new energy technologies that can support our growth and enable a reliable, affordable, clean energy future.
When we announced our strategy to advance the next generation of clean electricity sources, we identified a number of technologies that we would work to commercialize – setting the stage for ground-breaking deals to provide improved geothermal, advanced nuclear and long-term energy storage. We also identified natural gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a critical source of clean, firm power and outlined strict safety and environmental criteria we look for in potential CCS projects.
Today we are pleased to announce a first-of-its-kind corporate agreement to support a gas power plant with CCS. Broadwing Energy, located in Decatur, Illinois, will capture and permanently store approximately 90% of its CO2 emissions. By agreeing to buy most of the power it generates, Google is helping to get this new baseload power source built and connected to the regional grid that supports our data centers.
We hope it will speed the way for CCS technology to become more available and affordable globally, helping to increase production capacity while enabling emissions reductions.
What is CCS?
If you, like some of our data centers, are connected to the US grid today, some of the power you use comes from natural gas generation. CCS holds the promise of significantly reducing carbon emissions from gas-fired power plants and delivering clean, reliable power to power grids.
CCS works by capturing CO2 from a power plant or industrial plant and permanently storing it deep underground. Leading global institutions such as The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that it is a valuable tool because it can significantly reduce emissions from electricity generation and carbon-intensive industries such as steelmaking and cement production.
Broadwing is the first project in a long-term collaboration with project developer Low Carbon Infrastructure (LCI), a portfolio company of leading infrastructure investor I Squared Capital, to develop future CCS facilities in the United States and demonstrate how to implement CCS projects for commercial-scale power generation.
How does the Broadwing project work?
The Broadwing project is located at an industrial facility operated by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), which has almost a decade of experience in safely storing CO2 from ethanol production. A new power plant with over 400 MW of generating capacity will be built on site, and the CO2 it generates will be permanently stored in ADM’s adjacent EPA-approved Class VI sequestration facilities more than a kilometer underground.
We look forward to helping Broadwing achieve commercial operation in the early 2030s. LCI has already engaged a wide range of community stakeholders in the development of the project and will continue to do so throughout its life cycle. Designed to meet strict safety and environmental standards, Broadwing will bring significant benefits to the local community, including the creation of an estimated 750 full-time jobs over the next four years and supporting dozens of permanent jobs once the facility is operational.
What’s next?
Our goal is to help bring promising new CCS solutions to market while learning and innovating quickly—the same approach we’ve taken with other energy technologies. Our collaboration with LCI will help accelerate critical technical and operational improvements, from continuing to increase CO2 capture rates to improving system performance and economics.
Transparency will also be essential to ensure the environmental integrity of our projects. That’s why the project will incorporate a recently released standard for CCS-specific Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs), developed by industry experts to ensure that CCS projects can be accurately quantified in emissions reporting.
Harnessing the enormous potential of AI responsibly will require a wide range of solutions. In addition to building our portfolio of advanced clean energy technologies, we’re helping people tackle emissions in key sectors – such as transport and energy – in transformational ways. In 2024 alone, just five of our AI-powered products helped our users collectively reduce an estimated 26 million tons of CO2 equivalents, roughly equivalent to the emissions from the annual energy use of over 3.5 million US homes. All this contributes to creating a bright future for people everywhere.