By Tim De Chant
Publication Date: 2026-03-17 16:46:00
Google may have signed on to President Trump’s toothless power pledge, but it’s clear the company started working months ago on a framework to power its data centers.
On Thursday, Google said it will work with Michigan utility DTE to add 2.7 gigawatts of “new resources” in suburban Detroit to power a new data center in the region. Some specifics are still fuzzy at this point, but the deal mimics one signed last month with Xcel Energy to build a data center in Minnesota. This is how Google will develop new capacity for its future data centers.
The new plan includes 1.6 gigawatts of solar power, 400 megawatts of four-hour energy storage, 50 megawatts of long-duration energy storage, and 300 megawatts of “additional clean resources,” which is a squishy way of saying anything from wind and hydro to nuclear and geothermal.
TechCrunch sent Google’s PR people a number of questions, and while they responded with some details, it’s clear there’s a lot to the…
