What did Google announce in Wyoming?
Google announced on 5 November 2026 that it will build its first data center in Wyoming, a $17 billion project in Laramie County near Cheyenne. The company calls the campus Project Tembo.
The project began as Crusoe's Project Jade. A Google subsidiary, Jupiter Star Holdings, took it over and renamed it. Local filings describe about 716 acres, four data halls, an office hub, logistics and network buildings, and new access roads. Oil City News reported the campus at about 700 acres.
Google says the site will be fully operational by the end of 2031. It is working with Tallgrass Energy, Black Hills Energy, American Electric Power and Related Digital. The partners will supply power, carbon storage and site development.
The campus is planned to draw 2.7 GW of power, according to Black Hills. The Wyoming Outdoor Council says the design could scale to 10 GW. Those figures explain why the project has drawn attention beyond Laramie County.
The announcement is not just a real estate deal. It is a test of whether a hyperscaler can build in a state where data centers have become politically sensitive. Wyoming has welcomed the investment, but local officials and environmental groups want guarantees on power bills, water and land use.
"All of those investments represent a $17 billion investment that we're about to make in this community," Eric Murray, Google's land acquisition and development lead, told residents at a September meeting reported by Oil City News. The figure has not changed since.
Why is Google paying 100% of the power bill?
Google says it will pay for 100% of the electricity the data center uses. It also says it will cover the infrastructure needs directly driven by its growth. That promise is central to its pitch to Laramie County.
Black Hills Energy signed agreements through 2048 to serve the campus. The utility plans to invest $1.8 billion between 2027 and 2029 in 564 MW of new generation. It will provide up to 590 MW of grid-connected power and manage about 2.1 GW of third-party resources through a private microgrid, according to trade publication w.media. In total, Black Hills says the project will be served by 2.7 GW of resources.
Black Hills CEO Linn Evans said the agreements are structured so that "Google bears all costs associated with serving the planned data center." Google has also given Black Hills $399 million in refundable advances for long-lead equipment, w.media reported. The advances are expected to be repaid by June 2027.
Black Hills expects the project to generate about $150 million in net income in 2030 and about $2.4 billion in unlevered free cash flow after its $1.8 billion generation investment, w.media reported. The utility expects to earn a return on that investment once construction starts in 2027.
AEP is building a separate 702 MW fuel-cell plant near Cheyenne. It plans to invest about $4 billion and sell the power to Google under a 20-year contract, according to AEP. The project company, Cheyenne Fuel Cell LLC, is about 92% owned and controlled by AEP, with nearly 8% held by funds advised by Basalt Infrastructure Partners. Construction is scheduled to start in 2026, and the plant is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2028.
The pay-your-own-way model responds to a real political problem. Data center opponents say utilities and ordinary customers should not absorb the cost of new generation and transmission. Google's contracts are designed to show that its project will not raise bills for other customers. Whether the contracts cover every grid upgrade is a question regulators will test.
How does the 702 MW fuel-cell and carbon-capture plant work?
The AEP plant will use Bloom Energy fuel cells. The cells convert natural gas into electricity through an electrochemical reaction rather than combustion. Bloom will make the cells in the United States, Google says.
The project includes carbon capture and storage. AEP and Google say the system will capture a large majority of the plant's carbon emissions. Tallgrass will store the captured carbon permanently at its Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub. Google says the deal brings its total contracted CCS capacity in the US to nearly 1 GW.
Google calls the 702 MW development first-of-its-kind and the largest planned project of its kind. That scale is the point. It is also the risk. The design has not been tested at this size.
The campus will also draw power from gas generators operated by Tallgrass and Black Hills. Google is funding a front-end engineering study to see whether those combined-cycle turbines can be fitted with carbon capture. The project is therefore not a single, sealed system. It is a bundle of generation, storage and grid contracts.
Carbon capture can reduce emissions from a gas plant, but it does not make the fuel renewable. The climate result depends on how much CO2 is captured, how much energy the capture equipment consumes, and how much methane escapes before the gas reaches the plant. None of those figures appear in the announcement. Watch the permits and the first years of operating data.
Will the data center use too much water?
Google says the Wyoming campus will be air-cooled. The company says that choice will minimize strain on local water resources. Air cooling avoids the evaporative losses of water-cooled data halls, but it still uses water for construction, offices and maintenance.
A September presentation reported by Oil City News put the project's expected water use at 20 to 30 million gallons a year. The water would come from the Lance Formation aquifer, about 1,500 feet underground. It would be treated on-site and discharged into lined evaporation ponds.
Google also said it would replenish 120% of the water it consumes through regional watershed projects. The company cited 165 active water stewardship projects in 97 watersheds. Those are global figures, not a Laramie County audit.
Jocelyn Wulf of the Wyoming Outdoor Council told a Casper forum in September that water is the biggest concern she hears about data centers. She said the facilities themselves are using less water as closed-loop cooling spreads, but the gas plants that power them can consume tens to hundreds of millions of gallons a day. She also said a lack of mandatory public reporting leaves gaps in what communities know about wastewater discharge.
Water is a sensitive issue in Wyoming. The state is arid, and the aquifer is deeper than the shallow wells many residents use. Local officials want independent monitoring, not just company pledges. Google's air-cooling choice lowers the risk, but it does not remove the need for measurement.
What does Wyoming's 'Data Centers the Wyoming Way' order require?
Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon signed Executive Order 2026-03, "Data Centers the Wyoming Way," on 3 June 2026. The order directs state agencies to coordinate so that data center growth does not raise electricity rates for existing customers, harm communities, degrade natural resources or threaten water supplies.
"We welcome investment, jobs and economic opportunity while protecting our communities, our natural resources and our citizens from unintended costs," Gordon said at the time, according to WyoFile.
The order followed a wave of concern. WyoFile reported that data center development could triple Wyoming's electricity consumption. The pace of development had temporarily spurred talk of a moratorium in Cheyenne, WyoFile reported. The state wants the investment without the backlash.
Critics say the review process has gaps. Wulf said a lack of mandatory public reporting makes it hard for residents to track wastewater discharge and other impacts. She also warned that the gas plants built to serve data centers can consume far more water than the data halls themselves. Those concerns apply to the power side of Project Tembo, not just the buildings.
Wyoming's tax base depends heavily on coal, oil and gas royalties. Data centers pay property taxes and electricity sales taxes, and they create construction jobs. That helps explain why the state is courting the industry even as it writes new guardrails. The political challenge is to capture the tax revenue without letting the costs land on residents who did not negotiate the deal.
What are the limits of Google's commitments?
Google's commitments are voluntary. They are written into contracts with utilities and into a public blog post, not into a state statute. The Community Council that Google and its partners are creating is designed to coordinate with Cheyenne. It is not an independent regulator.
The 100% power promise is narrower than it sounds. It covers the electricity the data center uses and the infrastructure directly driven by the project. It does not, by itself, settle every question about transmission upgrades, stranded costs or the cost of backing up the grid. Those details will be decided in utility filings.
The 702 MW fuel-cell plant is only part of the supply. Black Hills says the project will be served by 2.7 GW of resources. Most of that is gas-fired or grid power. The campus will be large enough to matter to Wyoming's grid, even with on-site generation.
The scale could grow. The Outdoor Council's Wulf said the design could reach 10 GW. Google has not confirmed that figure, and the current plan is 2.7 GW. A buildout of that size would sharpen every question about water, land and grid costs.
The local benefits are real but uneven. Oil City News reported 2,500 construction jobs at peak and about 250 permanent jobs. Construction work is temporary. Property tax revenue is long-term, but Google's estimates have varied. A September presentation described tax revenue in the tens of millions over time; the November announcement says hundreds of millions. The difference may reflect timing or scope, but Google has not published a year-by-year projection.
Google says it did not seek local incentives. That is a meaningful contrast with projects that trade tax breaks for jobs. It does not answer every objection. Residents still want independent water and air monitoring, and they want to know who pays if the project is delayed or canceled.
What happens next?
The first tests are regulatory. Black Hills has received a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for the Robinson substation and an air quality permit for an expansion of the Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station. It has applied for an industrial siting permit for the station expansion, according to w.media. Other approvals are still pending.
Construction timelines are staggered. AEP plans to start building the fuel-cell plant in 2026 and finish by the end of 2028. The data center is slated to be fully operational by the end of 2031. That gives regulators and residents several years to watch the project before it reaches full load.
The key numbers to watch are the capture rate, the plant's availability, and the site's actual water use. Google and AEP have not published a capture-rate guarantee. Independent monitoring would show whether the near-zero framing holds in practice.
Wyoming's legislature meets in January 2027. The governor's framework will face its first legislative test then. Local governments will also decide how to apply their zoning and permitting rules to other projects.
Three outcomes would change the picture. A capture rate below expectations would undercut the near-zero claim. A cost overrun that spills onto other Black Hills customers would revive the ratepayer fight. A water shortage or discharge problem would test the air-cooling promise. Each is measurable, and each will show up in utility filings or state permits.
For the industry, the Wyoming project is a template. If it delivers power on time and on budget, other hyperscalers may copy the fuel-cell-plus-CCS model. If costs rise or capture underperforms, the case for gas-fired AI campuses weakens. Either way, the debate will be settled by operating data, not announcements.