The hardware behind the future


Google Contracts 500MW of Texas Solar for 15 Years to Serve ERCOT Data Centers

Linea Energy will supply the power from a 3,526-acre project in Matagorda County that has not yet broken ground, and neither company has put a price on the contract.

Google Contracts 500MW of Texas Solar for 15 Years to Serve ERCOT Data Centers

Google has contracted 500 megawatts of Texas solar output for fifteen years from Linea Energy, a San Francisco independent power producer sponsored by EnCap Investments L.P. The power is earmarked for Google's data center operations in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market, the grid known as ERCOT.

The supply comes from the Duffy Solar Project in Matagorda County, which Linea puts at 3,526 acres. Linea says construction will begin in the third quarter of 2026. The site also holds the 235 MWac Duffy battery energy storage project, which the company says is already under construction.

What the announcement leaves out is as relevant to a capacity plan as what it contains. Linea gives no commercial operation date for the solar project, although it stated one for a comparable Michigan solar project in an earlier release of its own. No contract price appears either, which is ordinary for a corporate power purchase agreement and consistent with the rest of Linea's published announcements.

"We are pleased to sign this agreement to supply clean energy in Texas to Google, one of the world's largest buyers of clean power," said Cassidy DeLine, chief executive officer of Linea Energy. "This transaction highlights Linea's credibility amongst the largest hyperscalers and the ability to support affordability and grid reliability."

Will Conkling, Google's director of energy and power, said in the same announcement that working with Linea would bring new low-cost power onto the grid and help keep the Texas energy system affordable for local families and businesses.

ESG Today reports that ERCOT covers 90 percent of the state's electrical grid and serves around 26 million customers, and that Google has signed more than 170 clean energy agreements for over 23 GW of generation since 2010. The same report places a 1 GW Texas solar agreement with TotalEnergies and a 1.2 GW agreement with Clearway among Google's recent purchases, the latter covering data centers in Missouri, Texas and West Virginia.

Neither company has said what share of Google's ERCOT load the 500 megawatts is meant to cover, and neither has described how the solar plant and the battery next to it will be dispatched. Those two gaps are what separate a contracted megawatt from a delivered one, and only the second is a question Linea can answer on its own.

For buyers planning capacity in ERCOT, the concrete fact is another 500 megawatts of solar now committed to a hyperscaler for fifteen years, from a project that has not yet started construction. For engineers, the open question is dispatch, because Linea says the solar plant and the 235 MWac battery share a site but has not said how the two will be operated together.

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