Google Signs Virtual PPA for 2.45GW Solar and Battery Project in Arkansas

Google has entered into a long-term virtual power purchase agreement (vPPA) with Cypress Creek Renewables for the entire output of the Steel River Energy Center, a massive solar and battery storage project under development in Mississippi County, Arkansas. The deal underscores the hyperscaler’s accelerating strategy to secure large-scale renewable energy to power its growing data center operations in the region.

The Steel River Energy Center, once fully built, will have a capacity of 2.45 gigawatts of solar power and 2.9 gigawatt-hours of battery energy storage. The project will be developed in three phases, with the first phase delivering 1.6 GW of solar and 2 GWh of storage. Completion of the entire facility is expected by 2029. Under the terms of the vPPA, Google will purchase the project’s environmental attributes at a fixed price rather than taking physical delivery of the electricity, providing Cypress Creek with the long-term revenue certainty needed to begin construction. The agreement builds on $3.5 billion in financing that Cypress Creek secured last month.

“The investment supplies the grid at large, and passes along the benefits from the local power plant to all customers in Arkansas,” said Will Conkling, Google’s head of data center energy, in comments to the Financial Times. The arrangement allows Google to claim the carbon-free energy credits associated with the facility, supporting its goal of operating on 24/7 carbon-free energy.

This latest vPPA adds to Google’s growing clean energy portfolio in Arkansas. In November 2025, the company signed a 100 MW PPA with Treaty Oak in the state. The new agreement also aligns with Google’s broader infrastructure expansion in the market, following a $4 billion investment commitment made to Arkansas in October 2025. The company is currently expanding its data center footprint in the state, which is becoming an increasingly important hub for cloud and AI infrastructure.

Cypress Creek, a U.S.-based renewable energy developer and independent power producer, has commercialized 12 GW of solar projects and maintains a development pipeline of more than 20 GW of solar and storage. The company has signed several renewable supply agreements with data center operators in recent years. In February 2025, it entered into an Environmental Attribute Purchase Agreement with Meta to support the construction of the 505 MW Hanson Solar project in Coleman County, Texas. The Steel River deal with Google further cements the growing trend of hyperscale cloud providers directly underwriting massive renewable energy projects to meet their sustainability targets and power demands.