:Facebook owner Meta Platforms will buy all the output of Engie’s planned U.S. Sypert solar power plant, the French utility said on Thursday, in line with attempts to use renewable sources to cover a data-led surge in demand.
The plant, with an estimated output of 260 megawatts (MW), is expected to start operating in late 2025, Engie said.
“Once operational, it will add to the existing Engie portfolio of around 8 GW (gigawatts) of renewable projects including solar, wind and battery storage in operation or construction across North America,” the company added.
Earlier this month, Engie announced a power purchase agreement with Google for the supply of solar power from its Chillingham plant, its largest U.S. solar project to date.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has asked big technology companies to invest in clean power generation to cover a surge in demand driven by technologies such as generative AI.
U.S. data centre power use is expected to roughly triple between 2023 and 2030 and will require about 47 GW of new generation capacity, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, which assumed natural gas, wind and solar power would fill the gap.