Google and Intersect Power have officially started building the Meitner Energy Center, a combined data center and renewable energy complex in the Texas Panhandle that pairs over 1 gigawatt of wind, solar, and battery storage with a new Google computing facility. The project, located in Gray and Roberts Counties near the city of Pampa, is designed to run entirely on clean energy from day one.
What’s actually being built
The Meitner Energy Center combines three types of clean energy, wind, solar, and battery storage, totaling more than 1 GW of capacity. The facility uses an air cooling system instead of traditional water-based cooling, eliminating the need for water withdrawals entirely.
Construction is expected to support up to 3,500 jobs through what’s being called the Caprock Workforce Hub, located in adjacent Wheeler County.
The project’s name pays tribute to Lise Meitner, the Austrian-Swedish physicist who helped discover nuclear fission but was famously overlooked for the Nobel Prize.
