By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) – Google has signed agreements with five U.S. power companies in states from Arkansas to Minnesota to reduce their electricity use during periods of peak demand, the company said on Thursday, in its latest effort to secure power for fast-growing data centers amid slow additions of new supply.
Immediate access to large amounts of electricity has become one of the biggest obstacles in Big Tech’s race to expand artificial intelligence technologies, which are developed in warehouses of energy-intensive servers known as data centers.
With energy supplies running low in some regions of the country and new infrastructure often taking years to build, technology companies have recently taken unusual steps that have included building new power plants or restarting shuttered nuclear units.
Under “demand response” agreements, Google will reduce electricity consumption in some data centers when demand on the network is exceptionally high.
“This is a really important tool to meet future demand,” said Michael Terrell, Google’s director of advanced energy.
Energy demand typically increases on very hot or cold days, when homes and businesses increase cooling or heating, increasing the risk of rolling blackouts. Utilities and grid operators hold additional reserves and have long contracted with large energy users (including cryptocurrency manufacturers and miners) to reduce consumption during peak periods.
Google has now signed contracts with Entergy Arkansas, Minnesota Power and DTE Energy, adding to initial deals announced last year with Indiana Michigan Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Under the contracts, Google will make up to 1 gigawatt of its data center electricity demand available for reduction during peak usage periods, when outage risks are greatest.
One gigawatt can power about 750,000 homes.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Mark Porter)