Google has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with American Electric Power to buy electricity from a 702MW fuel cell facility near Cheyenne, Wyoming. AEP holds a 92 percent stake in the project entity, Cheyenne Fuel Cell, with the remaining eight percent held by funds advised by Basalt Infrastructure Partners; Bloom Energy will supply the fuel cells under a previously announced agreement for up to 1GW of capacity. AEP estimates construction costs at $4 billion, with work beginning in 2026 and full operations expected by end of 2028. The announcement coincides with Google's separately reported 2.7GW data center campus under development eight miles south of Cheyenne, with construction slated to finish by 2031.
A $4 billion, 702MW fuel cell project represents one of the largest single clean-energy supply deals tied directly to a specific data center cluster, signaling that hyperscalers are willing to fund novel generation technologies at gigawatt scale to meet surging AI-driven power demand. The structure, combining a major utility, an infrastructure fund, and a fuel cell manufacturer under a 20-year offtake, sets a potential template for financing non-traditional power sources for data center loads.
A 20-year, 702MW power purchase agreement between Google and AEP for a fuel cell project is a major, highly specific energy deal involving named companies, a large capacity figure, and an unusual fuel cell technology angle — all strong newsworthiness signals. 1 similar article covering this event were reviewed but not selected (Hart Energy's AEP $4B fuel cell story covers the same deal from the utility investment side; Data Center Dynamics is retained as the more detailed source).