Salt River Project and NextEra Energy Resources have put the utility’s largest battery energy storage system online. Sonoran Solar Energy Center is a 260 MW solar facility with the ability to charge a 1 GWh battery energy storage system, located south of Buckeye, Arizona.
The solar and battery storage system is adding clean energy to the grid and will help match the electricity consumed by Google’s forthcoming data center campus in Mesa, Arizona. Energy not needed by the data center will be used to meet other SRP customer needs.
Also supporting Google is the newly developed Storey Energy Center, an 88-MW solar and battery storage system, located in Coolidge, Arizona. Both facilities support the clean energy transition of SRP’s power system and are operated by units of NextEra Energy Resources.
SRP and NextEra Energy Resources’ under development wind facility, Babbitt Ranch Energy Center, will also support Google. This is a 161-MW wind project, on Babbitt Ranches property in Coconino County, north of Flagstaff.
Google is pursuing net-zero emissions across its operations and value chain by 2030, supported by a goal to run its data centers and office campuses on 24/7 carbon-free energy. The Sonoran, Storey and Babbitt Ranch projects contribute to these commitments by supporting the energy needs of Google’s future data center in Mesa, which the company announced in 2023 with plans to use air-cooled technology.
“We're aiming for every Google campus to operate on clean electricity every hour of every day by 2030, including in Arizona where we are excited to put down roots with our first data center in the state currently under construction,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, Global Head of Data Center Energy, Google. “The collaboration with Salt River Project and NextEra is accelerating decarbonization in Arizona and our own carbon-free journey in the region.”
Through its integrated system plan, SRP found it will need to at least double the number of power resources on its power system in the next 10 years.
Additional battery energy storage capacity is also under development, which will bring SRP’s total battery storage to more than 1,100 MW by the end of 2024.
SRP is a public power utility and the largest electricity provider in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving approximately 1.1 million customers.
