FEATURE: Hyperscalers continue to dominate corporate renewables contracts in 2025

Hyperscalers continued to significantly outpace other industries in clean energy investments in 2025, but are expanding beyond traditional renewable energy contracts as the artificial intelligence race drives rising electricity demand.

In 2025, Amazon.com Inc., Google LLC, Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. signed a combined 16,777 megawatts of corporate renewables contracts, roughly 80% of the total 20,448 MW of signed corporate renewables contracts, according to S&P Global Energy data.

Despite changing US policy, big tech companies continue to invest in renewables.

"There is a lot of inertia," Tony Lenoir, associate director at 451 Research from S&P Global Energy Horizons, told Platts, part of S&P Global Energy. "This has been going on for 10 years."

In the effort to win the AI race, electricity consumption has increased significantly, creating a challenge for big technology companies to keep up with their renewables targets, said Dan Thompson, principal research analyst at 451 Research.

"I don't think that's reflective of a lack of desire," Thompson said. "These hyperscalers still care about their sustainability goals."

Google in October 2025 signed a power purchase agreement with Entergy Corp. subsidiary Entergy Arkansas LLC that will support the development of 600 MW of solar and 350 MW of battery storage to supply a data center development.

Already in the first two months of 2026, Google signed two contracts with TotalEnergies SE for 1 gigawatt of solar capacity to supply data centers in Texas; three contracts with Clearway Energy Inc. affiliate Clearway Energy Group for 1.17 GW for new resources to be developed in Missouri, Texas and West Virginia; and a contract with Xcel Energy Inc. for up to 1.9 GW from wind, solar and long-duration battery storage to support a data center in Minnesota.

The PPA market is currently largely a "sellers' market" due to the surge in demand from data centers, Caileen Gamache, a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, told Platts. Companies outside of big tech still need power as well. Gamache's practice includes representing project developers, investors, utilities and commercial and industrial consumers to draft and negotiate power purchase agreements.

Even with changes in tax law, Gamache expects to still be busy for at least the next six months and hopefully longer with renewables.

"But we have seen a marked increase in fossil-fuel PPAs already," Gamache said. "There are still clean energy goals, but the reality is that many new digital infrastructure facilities are relying on fossil fuels to operate. This may lead to an increase in 'virtual' PPAs to compensate actual energy use with renewable energy credits that reflect new renewable energy on the grid."

Over the last two or three years, solar has surpassed wind as the preferred grid-scale technology, Adam Wilson, senior principal research analyst at S&P Global Energy, told Platts. But the massive amount of power needed to fuel the AI race has companies looking beyond traditional renewable resources to reach their carbon goals.

Meta in June 2025 signed a PPA with Constellation Energy Corp. for the output of the Clinton nuclear plant in Illinois.

In January, Meta signed three agreements for up to 6.6 GW of nuclear, including from Vistra Corp. plants in the PJM Interconnection region, and from advanced nuclear developers Oklo Inc. and TerraPower LLC.

In a unique transaction to secure power supply announced in December 2025, Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., agreed to acquire independent power producer Intersect Power LLC for $4.75 billion in cash.

"It's kind of telling. First, it shows that Google still cares about renewables," Lenoir said. "Second, it shows that they think they're going to need a ton of energy."

There has been a conversation about whether AI data center demand is real, Lenoir said. The Google-Intersect deal, as well as the nuclear deals, serve as evidence that hyperscalers do believe the demand is real.

"It also shows they're willing to explore original ideas, think outside the box," Lenoir said.

While it is too early to tell if the Intersect deal will be a total strategy shift for Google, it seems that for now, momentum to invest in clean energy remains, Lenoir said.

"We didn't see a big drop in volume [of clean energy corporate deals] in the last 12 months," Lenoir said. "And big tech really is driving all of this."

Gaurang Dholakia contributed to this article.