Hyperscale data centers being developed to provide energy for artificial intelligence (AI) are forcing a change in the clean-energy conversation. “Hyperscalers” refers to large technology companies that build, own or procure extensive cloud and data center infrastructure, along with the substantial power resources needed to support rapidly growing computing demand. The US power sector has not had to confront load growth at this pace, and at this scale, for decades. Hyperscale data centers are demanding large, steady blocks of power on an accelerated timeline that do not match the current pace of transmission buildout or the lengthy interconnection queue.
At the same time, hyperscalers want power that is clean, firm and available around the clock. The set of technologies that can credibly satisfy all three, at large scale and on relatively quick timelines, is narrow. That is where natural gas combined cycle units with carbon capture and storage (NGCC+CCS) are re-entering the mainstream again as serious, if potentially controversial, clean firm power “lifeline” possibilities for hyperscalers that need large blocks of dependable power on compressed timelines. Put simply, NGCC+CCS refers to a natural gas combined cycle generating unit paired with carbon capture and storage technology that captures the plant’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for permanent storage.
Background
What NGCC+CCS Means in Practice
Natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) refers to a generation configuration that produces electricity from both primary combustion and waste heat that would otherwise be lost, routing hot exhaust from one or more combustion turbines through a heat-recovery steam generator to run a steam turbine.[1]
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to technologies that separate CO2 from a power plant’s flue gas to prevent release to the atmosphere, followed by durable storage (typically in deep geologic formations) or conversion to a long-lived product and permanently store it.[2] Put together, NGCC+CCS generally refers to a gas-fired combined-cycle plant designed to capture a substantial portion of its CO2 emissions and then transport and permanently store that CO2 in suitable geologic formations.[3]
Although NGCC+CCS is conceptually straightforward, the model remains more complex in practice. NGCC+CCS projects must overcome high capital costs, supply-chain constraints and equipment procurement delays, including for combustion turbines, as well as uncertainty regarding capture performance at scale and the availability of CO2 pipeline transportation and permanent storage infrastructure. Even where those components can be aligned, permitting, financing and regulatory approval may still present material barriers to deployment.
“Clean Firm” Is the Standard Hyperscalers Are Actually Considering
“Clean power” refers to electricity supplied from resources with a comparatively low greenhouse gas emissions profile, including both zero-emitting resources and generation paired with technologies that materially reduce emissions. The clean-energy procurement conversation is shifting from how many clean power MW hours a company can buy to whether the company can run on clean power when it actually consumes power. The question is no longer whether hyperscalers want 24/7 clean energy, it is whether the system can deliver it fast enough. This shift is happening against a load-growth backdrop that is no longer theoretical.
Most corporate clean-energy environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments and pledges sound simple until mapped onto operational requirements. Google’s 24/7 carbon-free energy goal (every hour, every day, by 2030) is the clearest example of that shift, and Microsoft and Amazon have likewise tied climate commitments to concrete procurement milestones measured at enterprise scale.[4] That’s why the conversation has migrated from renewable power (including wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, etc.) procurement to clean firm power procurement, particularly in regions where new load is arriving faster than transmission and interconnection can keep up. In the past, many companies satisfied those commitment goals while staying connected to the grid and using purchased renewable energy credits to offset their power consumption.
Clean firm power is the category that tries to square that circle: dispatchable, low-emission generation that does not rely on the weather and can provide clean power on demand. Examples commonly cited in the clean firm power bucket include nuclear, geothermal, and fossil fuel generation paired with CCS. Nuclear and geothermal are credible clean firm contenders, but each has its own challenges and bottlenecks to overcome. NGCC+CCS serves as a “bridge” technology that can, at least in theory, provide reliability needs with meaningful emissions reductions. Large-load customers are competing for firm capacity in constrained regions, and interconnection queues are not getting shorter.
Why Hyperscalers Are Talking About NGCC+CCS Now
A recent Department of Energy (DOE) report frames data centers as a rapidly expanding share of US electricity demand, estimating that data center load growth has tripled over the past decade with projections to double or triple over the next several years.[5] DOE reports that US data centers consumed about 4.4 percent of total US electricity in 2023, and DOE projects data center electricity use could rise to approximately 6.7 percent to 12 percent by 2028.[6] The US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) similarly flags large computing centers as a key driver of the strongest four-year growth in US electricity demand since 2000.[7]
Against that backdrop, a few overlapping considerations are pulling NGCC+CCS into the conversation:
- Load is arriving faster than the grid can add deliverable capacity.
- Hyperscaler load is generally steady and non-negotiable, although it may fluctuate depending on the services being provided and when computing demand is processed. When timelines are compressed, the limiting factor is often not corporate ambition, it is the pace of interconnection and transmission expansion relative to load deployment. Data center development demands are continuing to grow by the day. Data center load is here and it is large.
- Clean firm options are real, but not always fast enough.
- Nuclear and geothermal are credible clean firm contenders, but each carries siting, supply-chain, financing and development bottlenecks that can be hard to reconcile with near-term load.
- NGCC is dispatchable today and CCS is the decarbonization add-on.
- NGCC+CCS could provide a viable and buildable bridge. NGCC is dispatchable today, CCS is the decarbonization add-on that tries to close the emissions gap. At the same time, NGCC faces meaningful bottlenecks of its own, including long delays in the availability of combustion turbines. Even so, NGCC+CCS may serve as a bridge while nuclear and geothermal scale on slower timelines.
Where NGCC+CCS Is Showing Up: Industry Examples
Publicly announced hyperscaler-related NGCC+CCS projects are still relatively rare and in the early stages of development. But there are already credible signals that the model is moving beyond theoretical talking points.
- NextEra and ExxonMobil Project
- In December 2025, NextEra and ExxonMobil announced development of an initial ~1.2 GW project and have secured 2,500 acres of land for the facility positioned in proximity to ExxonMobil’s existing carbon dioxide pipeline infrastructure in Louisiana.[8] The companies plan to market the site to hyperscalers in 2026, although there is no publicly available signed agreement with a hyperscaler at the time of this publication.[9] This is a prime example of giant energy players pairing a large-load development project with a CCS and explicitly marketing to hyperscaler demands.
- Google Broadwing Project
- In October 2025, Google announced what it described as its first corporate agreement to support a gas power plant with CCS. Located in Decatur, Illinois,Google states that the facility will be over 400 MW and designed to capture and permanently store ~90% of CO2 emissions, with CO2 stored in adjacent EPA-approved Class VI sequestration facilities.[10] Notably, Google framed natural gas with carbon capture explicitly as a “critical source of clean firm power.”[11] That framing is important as it signals the direction for corporate clean power procurement toward firm, deliverable resources and toward development structures that can actually get new generation built and interconnected.
- Crusoe and Tallgrass Project
- In July 2025, Crusoe and Tallgrass announced a strategic partnership to develop a 1.8 GW AI data center campus in southeast Wyoming, with plans to scale the project to as much as 10 GW over time.[12] The project would rely on a power strategy that combines natural gas with future renewable energy development.[13] The companies also emphasized the site’s proximity to Tallgrass’s existing CO2 sequestration hub, which positions the project to implement future CCS development. The project is notable because it reflects a partnership between an AI developer and an energy company that integrates digital infrastructure needs with established CO2, natural gas, and water assets to support reliable, efficient and scalable power for long-term computational demands.
Takeaways
- Data center load growth is now a system-level driver. Load growth has significantly increased and will continue to outpace the traditional planning cadence and data centers are primary drivers.
- “Clean firm” has become the procurement battleground. Hyperscalers trying to square reliability with ESG commitments, the clean-energy story is moving toward clean firm, 24/7 and deliverable sources.
- Large actors are moving beyond theory into announced projects and development proposals. The market now includes concrete public announcements tying hyperscaler load strategies to gas generation paired with CCS (or an explicit CCS pathway).
- NGCC+CCS remains promising on paper, but risks remain. Even with recent headline announcements, NGCC+CCS projects still face notable challenges before becoming a concrete reality, including equipment and construction bottlenecks, high capital costs, uncertainty around capture performance at scale and the need for available CO2 transportation and permanent geologic storage infrastructure.
- NGCC+CCS is emerging as a practical bridge option. NGCC+CCS is being considered because it can be built on a scale and on a timeline that lines up with near-term capacity needs while other energy sources are built up on slower timelines.
Conclusion
Hyperscale data centers are demanding energy that is deliverable, on-demand and low-carbon, making the grid’s shortage of clean firm resources impossible to ignore. NGCC+CCS is emerging as a serious candidate to fill part of that gap, but only if projects can clear the challenges and hurdles that CCS projects face.
For now, the point is not that NGCC+CCS is the solution, it is that AI-driven load growth is shrinking the universe of solutions that can satisfy the hyperscaler timelines. That reality is pushing “clean firm” power procurement to the center of the debate. NGCC+CCS is back in the mix because it is one of the few options that can plausibly deliver scale and reliability on schedule. As the market pivots toward deliverable, round-the-clock clean firm energy supply, NGCC+CCS is re-emerging as one of the few scalable options that can be advanced in the near term.
[1] EIA, Glossary (last visited Mar. 20, 2026), available at https://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.php.
[2] Id.; see also DOE, Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage (last visited Mar. 20, 2026), available at https://www.energy.gov/carbon-capture-utilization-storage.
[3] DOE, Point Source Carbon Capture from Power Generation Sources (last visited Mar. 20, 2026), available at https://netl.doe.gov/carbon-capture/power-generation.
[4] See Google, 24/7 by 2030: Realizing a Carbon-Free Future (Sept. 2020), https://sustainability.google/reports/247-carbon-free-energy/; Google, Energy and Sustainability (last visited Mar. 20, 2026), available at https://publicpolicy.google/sustainability/; Microsoft, Corporate Responsibility – Sustainability, (last visited Mar. 20, 2026), available at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/sustainability; Amazon, Sustainability (last visited Mar. 20, 2026), available at https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/.
[5] U.S. Dep’t of Energy (“DOE”), DOE Releases New Report Evaluating Increase in Electricity Demand from Data Centers (Dec. 20, 2024), available at https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-releases-new-report-evaluating-increase-electricity-demand-data-centers.
[6] Id.
[7] U.S. Energy Info. Admin. (“EIA”), EIA Forecasts Strongest Four-Year Growth in U.S. Electricity Demand Since 2000, Fueled by Data Centers (Jan. 13, 2026), available at https://www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/press582.php.
[8] NextEra Energy, 2025 Investor Conference, at slide 96 (Dec. 8, 2025), available at https://www.investor.nexteraenergy.com/~/media/Files/N/NEE-IR/news-and-events/events-and-presentations/2025/2025-12-08%20NextEra%20Energy%20Investor%20Conference%20vF.pdf.
[9] Marshall, NextEra Teams with Google, Exxon in Massive AI Build-Out, E&E News (Dec. 9, 2025), available at https://www.eenews.net/articles/nextera-teams-with-google-exxon-in-massive-ai-build-out/.
[10] Terrell, Our First Carbon Capture and Storage Project (Oct. 23, 2025), available at https://blog.google/company-news/outreach-and-initiatives/sustainability/first-carbon-capture-storage-project/.
[11] Id.
[12] Crusoe AI, Crusoe and Tallgrass Announce AI Data Center in Wyoming (July 24, 2025), available at https://www.crusoe.ai/resources/newsroom/crusoe-and-tallgrass-announce-ai-data-center-in-wyoming.
[13] Id.
