Google announced Tuesday that it’ll construct a knowledge middle in Minnesota that’s backed by 1.9 gigawatts of unpolluted energy, together with an enormous 300-megawatt battery made by startup Kind Power.
The brand new information middle, Google’s first in Minnesota, shall be positioned in Pine Island, about an hour southeast of Minneapolis.
The tech firm is working with Xcel Power to construct 1.4 gigawatts of wind energy and 200 megawatts of solar energy. Each will feed Kind’s battery, which shall be able to delivering its rated energy for 100 hours. At 30 gigawatt-hours, it is going to be the biggest battery on the planet, serving to the information middle function on clear vitality for longer durations of time.
Such long-duration batteries assist renewable vitality sources proceed to supply energy at evening or throughout lulls, “firming” the facility supply, as specialists name it. Grid-scale lithium-ion batteries do that already, although for shorter durations.
Kind Power’s batteries are in contrast to most different grid-scale batteries. Whereas a typical grid-scale battery immediately makes use of lithium-ion know-how that’s been repurposed from chemistries utilized by the automotive trade, Kind’s batteries retailer vitality by rusting and deoxidizing iron.
When oxygen from the air flows over pebbles of iron contained in the battery, it rusts the iron, producing electrical energy within the course of. To cost, electrical present deoxidizes the rust, turning it again into metallic iron and releasing oxygen within the course of, which is drawn out of the battery.
As battery chemistries go, Kind’s iron-air cells are heavy and never very environment friendly. Typical iron-air batteries can solely ship 50% to 70% of the vitality used to cost them, in contrast with upwards of 90% for lithium-ion batteries. However for all their downsides, they arrive with one very massive upside: they’re extremely low cost. Kind says 1 kilowatt-hour of storage will in the end value simply $20 utilizing their know-how, which is at the very least 3 times cheaper than lithium-ion batteries.
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June 9, 2026
The brand new venture additionally introduces a wonky utility price construction to Minnesota that’s meant to assist utilities undertake clear applied sciences with out operating afoul of their regulators, which push utilities to make use of the most cost effective supply of electrical energy.
Google first developed the idea in Nevada, the place it’s shopping for energy from enhanced geothermal startup Fervo. Alternately known as the “clear transition tariff” or the “clear vitality accelerator cost,” the settlement between Google and Xcel permits the utility to just accept initiatives that could be thought of dangerous by regulators, with the tech firm paying a premium to make sure that common ratepayers aren’t left holding the bag.
Photo voltaic and wind are each confirmed applied sciences, however Kind’s iron-air batteries are nonetheless comparatively new. The startup’s first battery is at present being put in in Minnesota with cooperative utility Nice River Power, and it’ll retailer 150 megawatt-hours for 100 hours, sending 1.5 megawatts to the grid at its peak.
Kind makes its batteries at a manufacturing unit in West Virginia. The corporate has raised $1.4 billion up to now, in line with PitchBook information.
