Google strikes first fusion power deal with Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: Google has agreed to buy power from a project fuelled by fusion technology, which seeks to recreate the same energy that powers the sun and stars, but is not yet available to buy on earth.
The numbers: Google said it will purchase 200 megawatts of power from Commonwealth Fusion System’s first commercial plant, 'Arc', which is expected to begin delivering electricity from the early 2030s.
Google said it will make its second investment into the fusion company, which is considered the global leader in the race to commercialise fusion power. While the companies did not disclose the size of the investment, Commonwealth co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard told Tech Crunch that the new round will be “comparable” to the previous one. In 2021 Google joined a funding round led by Tiger Global Management which injected USD1.8 billion ($2.75 billion) into the project.
The context: Commonwealth has leased a site near a natural gas plant in Virginia to build the commercial power plant, 'Arc'.
Commonwealth, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sees the rapidly increasing demand for cheap, carbon-free energy as big tech increasingly relies on massive amounts of power to train and run artificial intelligence.
What they said: Mumgaard added: “Our strategic deal with Google is the first of many as we move to demonstrate fusion energy from SPARC and then bring our first power plant online. We aim to demonstrate fusion’s ability to provide reliable, abundant, clean energy at the scale needed to unlock economic growth and improve modern living – and enable what will be the largest market transition in history.”
The sources: Commonwealth Fusion Systems , Bloomberg, Tech Crunch, CNN
