Search engine giant Google has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a Massachusetts-based energy startup, to buy 200 MW of electricity from its coming ARC power plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia, by the early 2030s. This pre-order marks a significant step in the pursuit of sustainable energy solutions, underscoring the tech giant’s commitment to investing in innovative energy sources.
To date, CFS has raised over $2 billion. The company’s strategy involves using custom superconducting magnets within a tokamak device to contain plasma at extremely high temperatures. According to the company, the tokamak could change where the world gets its power from, which can generate 10 million times more energy than coal or natural gas while producing no planet-warming pollution.
Fuel for fusion is rich in nature because it’s made from a form of hydrogen found in seawater and tritium extracted from lithium. Moreover, unlike nuclear fission, there is no radioactive waste released.
However, today’s big challenge is that no one has yet built a machine powerfully and precisely enough to get more energy out of the reaction than they put into it.
CFS is currently building a fusion prototype facility, named SPARC, in Devens, Massachusetts, which will prove that net energy (Q>1) can be produced from fusion using their approach.
Following SPARC, they are going to build ARC with an expected output of 400 MW of electricity, and half of this output will be sold to Google. While 200 MW can power approximately 200,000 average US homes, the full potential of the ARC reactor is equivalent to a utility-scale natural gas power plant.
This PPA shows that fusion is seriously considered as a source of green, continuous energy to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of data centers and other energy-intensive industries.
Big tech firms such as Google or Microsoft have been investing in fusion before.
In 2021, Google was among many investors funding US$1.8 billion to CFS. Following the recent agreement, they have also confirmed a new fund for the energy startup. On the other hand, the giant firm also invested in TEA Technologies, a California-based startup focusing on a very different fusion approach called the field-reversed configuration.
In 2023, Microsoft also partnered with Helion Energy to buy 50MW of energy from its first power plant.
Article & image source Commonwealth Fusion Systems
