Black Hills plans $1.8 billion investment to power Google's data center

Oct 6 : Black Hills Corp said on Tuesday it signed agreements to power a proposed Google data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and plans to spend $1.8 billion from 2027 to 2029 on new generation capacity, as tech firms race to secure electricity for power-hungry AI data centers.

• Black Hills said it will build 564 megawatts (MW) of new generation capacity for the Cheyenne project

• The project is expected to draw on a 2.7-gigawatt (GW) resource mix, including reserve margins, with power deliveries set to begin in late 2027 and peak load expected in 2030

• Black Hills will supply up to 590 MW from the grid, mostly from a new gas plant at its Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station and manage about 2.1 GW of third-party resources in Wyoming through a privately managed microgrid

• The South Dakota-based utility expects the project to add about $150 million to its net income by 2030

• The agreement requires Google to cover the full cost of supplying electricity to the data center, preventing those expenses from being passed on to other utility customers

• Separately, Google also signed a 3.59-GW power contract with Constellation Energy, which will invest more than $4.3 billion in its fleet

• In August last year, Black Hills agreed to merge with NorthWestern Energy in an all-stock deal to create a $15.4 billion regulated electric and natural gas utility