Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) is making strides to reliably power the future of Nebraska with a new clean capacity collaboration with Google and NextEra Energy Resources, LLC.
The collaboration will allow OPPD to access 600 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity from NextEra Energy Resource’s High Banks Wind Energy Center. The High Banks Wind Energy Center, which is owned and operated by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, has been online since December of 2023 as a part of Google’s long term clean energy portfolio. Google is now supplying this capacity resource to OPPD and will retain the energy and environmental attributes from the project to support its 24/7 carbon-free energy goals.
Capacity contracts are important tools that allow electric utilities like OPPD to meet regulatory requirements that help ensure utilities have adequate resources to deliver power to customers. This project will help OPPD make significant strides in ensuring reliability as its service area experiences unprecedented growth.
“We’re so pleased to work with both Google and NextEra Energy Resources on this project,” OPPD Chief Executive Officer Javier Fernandez said. “It’s this type of innovative, collaborative thinking that will help keep our growing communities reliably, affordably and sustainably powered for years to come.”
“We are working towards an ambitious goal for every Google campus to operate on clean electricity every hour of every day by 2030. This includes Nebraska, which we’ve called home since collaborating with OPPD to break ground on our data center campus in Papillion in 2019,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, Global Head of Data Center Energy, Google.
“Since 2013, NextEra Energy Resources has been committed to the state of Nebraska and diversifying its energy mix with investments of more than $800 million to date,” said Rebecca Kujawa, president and CEO of NextEra Energy Resources. “This collaborative project exemplifies the fundamental need for delivering reliable and clean energy to serve businesses and communities that are seeing a significant increase in energy demand.”
“We’re here to help keep our communities thriving, and we take seriously the role reliable, affordable and sustainable energy plays in making that happen,” Fernandez said. “This initiative is just one more important step in fulfilling our commitment to reliably powering our growing communities and businesses.”