Google's $17B Wyoming Plan Pairs Fuel Cells With CCS

Google plans to power part of its $17 billion Wyoming data center with a 702 megawatt (MW) fuel cell plant built by Bloom Energy. Carbon capture will send most of its emissions to nearby geological storage. Construction starts in 2026, with full operations targeted by the end of 2028.

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What Is Google Building Near Cheyenne, Wyoming?

Google plans a $17 billion data center, its first in Wyoming, in Laramie County near Cheyenne. The company announced the investment on November 5, 2026.

Google is working with Tallgrass Energy, Black Hills Energy, American Electric Power (AEP) and Related Digital. Tallgrass operates energy infrastructure, including pipelines and carbon storage. Black Hills Energy is a utility serving Wyoming customers. AEP is an Ohio-based electric utility company. Related Digital develops data centers.

Google says it will pay for all the power the data center uses. It will also cover the infrastructure its growth requires. Decarbonfuse has covered how Tallgrass approaches carbon transport. The Wyoming plan also joins the wider US carbon capture race.

How Does the 702 MW Fuel Cell Plant Work?

The plant uses Bloom Energy solid oxide fuel cells to turn natural gas into electricity through an electrochemical reaction. No combustion or turbine is involved.

Google describes the 702 MW installation as the largest planned commercial-scale development of its kind. Bloom Energy builds the fuel cells in the United States. Other developers are also pairing low-carbon power with data centers, including a plan using 400 tons of hydrogen daily to power data centers.

AEP plans to invest about $4 billion under a 20-year power purchase agreement, according to AEP's October 14, 2026 announcement. Power Magazine reports the plant is about seven times the size of AEP's earlier 98 MW fuel cell deployment in Ohio.

A project company called Cheyenne Fuel Cell LLC owns the plant. AEP holds about 92% of it. Funds managed by Basalt Infrastructure Partners hold about 8%. AEP chairman, president and CEO Bill Fehrman tied the project to growing power needs.

The 702 MW figure is the plant's rating. The fuel cells are one part of the site's power supply, alongside other gas generation covered below.

How Will Tallgrass Store the Captured Carbon?

The fuel cell plant will send captured CO2 to Tallgrass's Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub near the project. Google says CCS will capture and permanently store a large majority of the plant's emissions.

The hub sits in the Denver-Julesburg Basin. Decarbonfuse reported in November 2025 that Tallgrass planned six injection wells with capacity for 5.1 million tons of CO2 per year, at about 9,000 feet deep. Tallgrass also plans to capture and sequester CO2 from the ADM corn processing complex in Nebraska.

Wyoming holds state authority over Class VI wells, the permit class for permanent CO2 injection. Other developers have also reached Class VI milestones in recent months.

AEP says near-zero emissions is a goal that depends on the planned carbon capture. Bloom Energy founder, chairman and CEO KR Sridhar described this kind of pairing in a May 2025 interview with Latitude Media.

Google has not named a capture rate for Wyoming. The project is under development and is not yet operating.

How Does Wyoming Compare With Illinois Broadwing?

Wyoming centers on 702 MW of fuel cells. Google's earlier Illinois Broadwing project centers on about 400 MW of natural gas power generation.

Broadwing is planned for Decatur, Illinois. Low Carbon Infrastructure, backed by I Squared Capital, is developing it with ADM Class VI storage. The Broadwing agreement targets about 90% capture, power in 2029 and CCS operations in 2030.

Feature	Wyoming Project	Illinois Broadwing
Generation capacity	702 MW	About 400 MW
Generation technology	Bloom Energy fuel cells	Natural gas power generation
Developer	AEP and project partners	Low Carbon Infrastructure
Storage arrangement	Tallgrass Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub	ADM Class VI storage
Capture rate	Large majority, percentage undisclosed	About 90%
Expected power operations	By end of 2028	2029
Expected CCS operations	Not separately specified	2030

The two projects use different generation designs and different storage partners. Wyoming is not a scaled-up version of Broadwing.

Broadwing burns gas to generate power and captures the CO2 afterward. Wyoming generates power electrochemically in fuel cells, then sends the CO2 to a nearby storage hub.

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Additional Gas Supply and Community Plans

Google will also buy electricity from natural gas generators run by Tallgrass and Black Hills Energy. The 702 MW fuel cell plant is one supply source among several.

Google is running a technical front-end engineering and design (FEED) study on adding CCS to Tallgrass's combined-cycle turbines. The study is separate from the fuel cell plant. It has not produced a confirmed project.

The data center will use air cooling to minimize pressure on local water resources. Google expects the development to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes for Laramie County and School District 1.

More than 200 Laramie County residents attended Google's recent community meeting in Cheyenne. Google plans a Community Council with Tallgrass, Black Hills Energy, Related Digital, AEP and Bloom Energy to address local priorities.

Why Does Nearly 1 GW of Contracted CCS Capacity Matter?

Google says the Wyoming project lifts its total contracted CCS capacity to nearly 1 GW. Illinois Broadwing was the first project in that total.

The 20-year agreement gives AEP a long-term buyer for the plant's output. Together, the two deals cover two different ways of pairing gas-based power with permanent storage.

Other CCS-backed power and storage projects are also moving forward in North America:

• California Resources Corporation, through its Carbon TerraVault unit, signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Bloom Energy in early November 2026. It covers 1 GW or more of fuel cells with CCS in California, storing up to 3 million metric tons of CO2 per year.
• HDF Energy selected Topsoe for a 250 MW power plant in West Texas. It targets 98% capture, about 1.1 million metric tons of CO2 per year and operations in 2030.
• Ozona and Marubeni reached a final investment decision on the Pawnee storage project in Bee County, Texas. It can store up to 400,000 tonnes per year, with first injection planned for the first quarter of 2027.

The Road to 2028 Runs Through Cheyenne

Construction on the 702 MW fuel cell plant begins in 2026, alongside Google's $17 billion Laramie County campus. The next milestones are the plant build, the link to Tallgrass's storage hub and the outcome of the turbine FEED study.

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