Google has announced a first-of-its-kind corporate agreement to support a gas power plant with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in Decatur, Illinois. The Broadwing Energy project will capture and permanently store approximately 90% of its CO2 emissions, with Google agreeing to purchase most of the power it generates to help get the new baseload power source built and connected to the regional grid that supports its data centers.

Project Details and Infrastructure

The Broadwing project will be located at an industrial facility operated by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), which has nearly a decade of experience safely storing CO2 from ethanol production. A new power plant with over 400 MW of generating capacity will be built on site, and the CO2 it generates will be permanently stored in ADM's adjacent EPA-approved Class VI sequestration facilities more than a mile underground.

Google expects to help Broadwing achieve commercial operation by early 2030. The project represents the first initiative in a longer-term collaboration with project developer Low Carbon Infrastructure (LCI), a portfolio company of leading infrastructure investor I Squared Capital, to develop future CCS facilities in the United States and demonstrate how to deploy CCS projects for power generation at a commercial scale.

Technology and Environmental Standards

CCS technology captures CO2 from a power plant or industrial facility and permanently stores it deep underground. Leading global institutions, including the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), agree that it is a valuable tool because it can significantly reduce emissions from power generation and from carbon-intensive industries such as steel manufacturing and cement production.

The Broadwing project is designed to meet rigorous safety and environmental standards. The project will incorporate a newly released standard for CCS-specific Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs), developed by industry experts to ensure that CCS projects can be accurately quantified in emissions reporting.

Economic Impact and Community Benefits

The project will bring significant benefits to the local community, including creating an estimated 750 full-time jobs over the next four years and supporting dozens of permanent jobs once the plant is running. LCI has already engaged a broad range of community stakeholders in the project's development and will continue to do so throughout its lifecycle.

Google's Broader Energy Strategy

This announcement is part of Google's broader strategy to advance the next generation of clean electricity sources. The company has identified a suite of technologies it would work to commercialize, including enhanced geothermal, advanced nuclear, and long duration energy storage. Google has also identified natural gas with carbon capture and storage as a critical source of clean firm power and outlined stringent safety and environmental criteria for potential CCS projects.

The collaboration with LCI aims to help fast-track critical technical and operational improvements, from continuing to raise CO2 capture rates to improving system performance and economics. Google's goal is to help bring promising new CCS solutions to the market while learning and innovating quickly, using the same approach it has taken with other energy technologies.

Google hopes the project will accelerate the path for CCS technology to become more accessible and affordable globally, helping to increase generating capacity while enabling emission reductions. The company states that harnessing AI's immense potential responsibly will require a wide range of solutions, and alongside building its portfolio of advanced clean energy technologies, it is helping people manage emissions in key sectors like transportation and energy.

In 2024 alone, five of Google's AI-powered products helped users collectively reduce an estimated 26 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, roughly equivalent to the emissions from the annual energy use of over 3.5 million U.S. homes.

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