A large operational battery energy storage system is now online, Salt River Project and NextEra Energy Resources LLC recently announced.

Sonoran Solar Energy Center is a 260-megawatt solar facility with the ability to charge a 1 gigawatt-hour battery energy storage system south of Buckeye. 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. Energy not needed by the data center will be used to meet other SRP customer needs, according to a release.

Also supporting Google is the newly developed Storey Energy Center, an 88MW solar and battery storage system in Coolidge. Both facilities support the clean energy transition of SRP’s power system and are operated by subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources. They jointly generate enough energy to power nearly 80,000 average size homes when the sun is shining, and they can store clean energy for up to four hours to support the power grid when there is high power demand, the release states.

SRP and NextEra Energy Resources’ under development wind facility, Babbitt Ranch Energy Center, will also support Google. This is a 161MW 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, the release states.

“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,” Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of data center energy for Google, said in the release. “The collaboration with Salt River Project and NextEra is accelerating decarbonization in Arizona and our own carbon-free journey in the region.”

SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area serving approximately 1.1 million customers. SRP provides water to about half of the Valley’s residents, delivering more than 244 billion gallons of water (750,000 acre-feet) each year, and manages a 13,000-square-mile watershed that includes an extensive system of reservoirs, wells, canals and irrigation laterals.

“SRP and the Valley are fortunate to have sustainability focused organizations like Google located here who help accelerate the transition to carbon-free power resources,” Bobby Olsen, chief planning, strategy and sustainability officer at SRP, said in the release. “We also value our partnerships with developers like NextEra Energy Resources who support SRP in developing renewable resources in a rapid timeframe as we prioritize delivering affordable, reliable and sustainable power to all SRP customers.”