In response to the demand for more computational power, ExxonMobil plans to sell low-carbon electricity to data centers.
The oil and gas giant is building a massive natural gas-fired plant which is already in early development stages, the New York Times reported. The company said its carbon capture and storage (CCS) system could trap and store over 90% of the plant’s CO2 emissions.
This would be the first time Exxon is developing a power plant that wouldn’t electrify its own operations. The company has developed 5.5 GW of power projects since 2001 in states like Texas and Louisiana.
Exxon believes data centers could account for up to 20 percent of the total addressable market for CCS in 2050, company executives said in a corporate plan update on Wednesday.
This particular gas-fired plant would not be connected to the grid, avoiding grid connection challenges and meaning it could come online faster. Executives said the company has previously developed 800 MW of islanded power generation.
The future adoption of CCS in power generation likely depends on a variety of factors, like changes in the cost to capture CO2, the availability of pipeline networks and storage capacity for transporting and storing CO2, federal and state regulatory decisions and the development of clean energy technologies that could affect the demand for CCS.
Earlier this week NET Power, with the help of several partners, said it plans to develop 1 GW of gas-fired power with its Allam-Fetvedt Cycle CO2 capture system.
Also this week, a new project in the UK was approved to proceed with its plans to create the world’s first gas-fired power station with CCS. NZT Power, a joint venture between bp and Equinor, could produce up to 742 MW of dispatchable low-carbon power. Start-up could be as soon as 2028.
According to a study published by EPRI in May, data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 — more than double the amount currently used. Demand for computing power from data centers, fueled by artificial intelligence and other new technologies, requires enormous amounts of power.
