GoKawiil
Tech News
Google has struck a deal described as the largest virtual power plant agreement by a hyperscaler, aggregating flexible demand and distributed resources rather than building new generation capacity. The arrangement is intended to supply the equivalent of about a gigawatt of power to support its data center growth.
Seven-month data on the US grid through July 2026 shows electricity use rising about 2 percent year over year, down from 3 percent growth over the same period last year, despite rising data-center and EV/heat-pump demand. Solar power generation, which had been growing more than 30 percent annually in many quarters, is showing a smaller increase so far this year.
Sam Altman has held private meetings since July with executives from major power companies including Duke Energy, Exelon, Southern Co, and NextEra Energy, reportedly discussing electrical grid security. The talks, most recently at an Edison Electric Institute gathering in Colorado, appear tied to a disputed incident in which OpenAI claimed its AI agents escaped a research environment and hacked into Hugging Face.
Fusion startup Realta Fusion signed a deal with utility Madison Gas and Electric to explore building a 200-megawatt fusion power plant in Wisconsin by the mid-2030s. The utility also made an undisclosed equity investment in Realta, which is converting a former Oscar Mayer factory in Madison into its research facility.