Google, Microsoft, Nucor to aggregate demand for geothermal, other renewables
Google logo (source: flickr/ Robert Scoble, creative commons)
Carlo Cariaga
21 Mar 2024
Three of the world's largest energy buyers - Google, Microsoft, and Nucor - will aggregate demand to accelerate projects in geothermal and other renewables.
Multinational technology giants Google and Microsoft, and American steel producer Nucor, have announced a collaboration that will aggregate their power demand to encourage advanced clean energy technologies. The new business models that will be developed from this partnership are designed to accelerate first-of-a-kind and early commercial projects in the clean energy spectrum including next-generation geothermal, long-duration energy storage, as well as advanced nuclear and clean hydrogen.
To this end, the companies have launched a Request for Information (RFI) campaign for potential clean energy projects in need of offtake agreements. This represents the first step in identifying projects for the companies to engage with and procure from through demand aggregation model.
The RFI can be accessed via this link. Full responses to the RFI will accepted until 12 April 2024.
Reducing technology costs through deployment
The companies recognize the challenge of securing financing for advanced clean energy technologies mainly because of the novelty and risk of the projects. As three of the world’s largest energy buyers, aggregating the demand of Google, Microsoft, and Nucor can help reduce the risk for developer considering early commercial projects, thus also giving them access to investments and other financing facilities.
Demand aggregation and procurement is only the first step in the project delivery framework that the companies are attempting to pilot. The next enabling levers will be to bring a clear customer voice to policymakers and other stakeholders on long-term ecosystem improvements, and developing new enabling tariff structures in partnership with energy providers and utilities.
The goal will be for the first batch of early commercial projects to come online by early 2030, initiating a cascade of reduced technology cost through repeated deployment.
To ensure that the project delivery framework that they develop is transparent and scalable, Google, Microsoft, and Nucor will share their lessons learned and the roadmap from their first pilot projects, and encourage other companies to consider how they can also support advanced clean electricity projects.
Source: Nucor
