Google signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with AEP for a 702MW fuel cell project in Wyoming, with Bloom Energy supplying the fuel cells.

Google has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with US utility American Electric Power (AEP) to offtake power from a newly announced 702MW fuel cell generation project near Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Under the terms of the PPA, Google will purchase power from Cheyenne Fuel Cell, of which AEP holds a 92 percent stake. The remaining eight percent is held by funds advised by Basalt Infrastructure Partners. The fuel cells will be supplied by Bloom Energy under a previously announced agreement for up to 1GW.

AEP said it plans to commence construction on the plant in 2026, with the facility expected to reach full operations by the end of 2028. The company estimates the project will cost $4 billion to construct.

"As power demand continues to grow, AEP is bringing together new technologies and strong partnerships to deliver reliable, innovative energy solutions quickly and at scale," said Bill Fehrman, AEP chairman, president, and chief executive officer. "This project demonstrates how we are creating new opportunities to meet evolving energy needs for customers both within and beyond our traditional service territory."

Bloom is a leading company specializing in fuel cell solutions for the data center industry. Its SOFC fuel cells generate electricity from fuel through an electrochemical reaction rather than combustion, which Bloom claims results in much higher efficiency and lower emissions.

The company has already signed several deals in the data center space. In May, it struck a deal with neocloud Nebuis to help power its data center infrastructure build-up in the US. Before that, it expanded an agreement with cloud firm Oracle to supply up to 2.8GW of capacity. The companies signed a deal last year for an initial 1.2GW of capacity, with deployments currently underway and expected to continue into next year. Bloom has also signed deals with Equinix for deployments across 19 data centers with a combined capacity exceeding 100MW.

Google is currently developing a 2.7GW data center near Cheyenne, Wyoming. News of the data center first emerged in July. The campus is to be developed on a 716-acre parcel located eight miles south of Cheyenne in the Switchgrass Industrial Park.

The application suggests that four data halls will be built, along with an office hub, logistics buildings, and network buildings. Construction is slated to be completed by 2031.