Example: Google’s Kansas City facility

Home 9 Analysis 9 Google’s Kansas City facility

In March 2024, Google announced plans to build a $1B data center campus in Kansas City with a power consumption capacity of about 500MW. In Missouri, a 500MW power plant would serve about 400,000 households. As of the 2022 Census, Kansas City itself had fewer than 217,000 households.

At the same time, Google announced the Beavertail Solar project in partnership with a solar developer. Its location was given as the site of an old coal plant in Missouri. The announcement said the solar farm would have a capacity of 400MW. The website for Beavertail Solar that came up later said the solar farm would power 60,000 homes, which in Missouri is only about 75MW.

When the 500MW data center and the 75MW solar farm come online, the data center will be 85% powered by the local grid, unless further new power plant development is in the works. The local grid has a decent 43% low-carbon electricity, but at 443g of CO2e per kilowatt, the local electricity will cause a data center using it to emit as much CO2e in a year as five gas power plants.

Google’s data center campus and solar farm will both be under construction for some years. Whether or not Google is planning additional renewable capacity, the local electric utility will have to provide power which will require planning capacity expansion.

References cited on this page

The Register, Brandon Vigliarolo, March 20, 2024, https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/20/googles_kansas_city_datacenter