Google to buy $3B worth of electricity for data centers from Holtwood, Safe Harbor hydroelectric plants

• By Chad Umble/LNP | LancasterOnline

The owner of hydroelectric plants at Holtwood and Safe Harbor has agreed to sell Google massive amounts of electricity generated by the Susquehanna River dams to power some Google data centers.

As part of a new, 20-year agreement, Google will get the right to purchase 670 megawatts of power from the plants as part of a deal worth more than $3 billion, according to Brookfield Asset Management, the Canadian company whose Brookfield Renewable subsidiary owns the plants in southwestern Lancaster County.

“Our partnership with Google demonstrates the critical role that hydropower can play in helping hyperscale customers meet their energy goals,” Connor Teskey, president of Brookfield Asset Management, said in a press release announcing the agreement. “Delivering power at scale and from a range of sources will be required to meet the growing electricity demands from digitalization and artificial intelligence.”

Brookfield’s press release about the Google deal said the Holtwood and Safe Harbor plants will be relicensed, upgraded or overhauled to meet the new energy demands from Google. A Brookfield spokesperson did not respond to questions about exactly how the plants might be upgraded.

According to Brookfield’s website, the Safe Harbor and Holtwood dams currently generate 296 megawatts of energy annually, which is enough to power 100,000 homes for a year. If Google’s purchase of 670 megawatts of power is evenly divided over 20 years, the company would buy 33.5 megawatts a year, or around 11% of the plants’ current annual capacity.

A Brookfield spokesperson did not respond to a question about how energy would be divvied up from the plants, but the press release about the Google deal said Brookfield will maintain existing commitments to power customers.

Brookfield’s contract to sell Google 670 megawatts of energy from its Holtwood and Safe Harbor dams is one part of Brookfield’s larger plan to deliver to Google up to 3,000 megawatts of “carbon-free hydroelectric capacity across the United States,” according to the Brookfield press release which described it as “the world’s largest corporate clean power deal for electricity.”

Google and Brookfield announced their deal Tuesday as part of the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit held in Pittsburgh and organized by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania Republican. President Donald Trump attended the event where companies announced more than $90 billion worth of investments in data centers, energy and power infrastructure, and workforce and artificial intelligence projects.