Google, Treaty Oak Seal 100MW Arkansas Solar PPA

• Google inks 15-year PPA with Treaty Oak for 100MW from Arkansas’ Redfield Solar, powering data centers and accelerating SPP renewables amid Big Tech’s decarbonization push.

Treaty Oak Clean Energy LLC said Wednesday it signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with Google for 100 megawatts from the Redfield Solar Project in Grant County, Ark. The US independent power producer will supply electricity from the facility to support Google’s operations under the long-term contract.

The deal underscores Big Tech demand for renewable energy as companies expand data centers and pursue decarbonization targets. Arkansas sits in the Southwest Power Pool, where new solar capacity is accelerating. Financial terms and a commissioning date weren’t disclosed. The Redfield project adds to Google’s U.S. clean-energy portfolio and Treaty Oak’s development pipeline.

How will Google’s 15-year PPA for 100 MW in Arkansas impact SPP solar buildout?

• Anchors financing for at least 100 MW of new build in the SPP footprint/adjacent area, signaling bankability that can pull forward nearby projects awaiting offtake.
  
• Sets a long-tenor price benchmark that other developers in SPP can use to lock PPAs, compressing risk premiums and lowering WACC for additional solar.
  
• Increases corporate-led demand in SPP South/Central, prompting utilities and co-ops (e.g., AECC, SWEPCO) to expand solar RFPs to serve rising hyperscale/data-center load.
  
• Improves developer leverage in the SPP interconnection queue by converting pipeline MW with ERIS/NRIS studies into financeable assets, potentially accelerating withdrawals of weaker projects and clearing the queue.
• Encourages solar-plus-storage configurations to mitigate SPP’s midday congestion and low ELCC for standalone solar, improving capacity accreditation and capture prices.
  
• Supports monetization of IRA tax credits (transferability, potential domestic content/energy community adders), enhancing project economics and spurring copycat deals across Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
  
• Signals to transmission planners that corporate offtake will utilize new solar, strengthening the case for SPP South congestion relief upgrades and accelerating reliability/expansion projects.
  
• Nudges nodal price formation: more contracted solar in Arkansas/nearby SPP zones can deepen midday price dips and increase evening ramps, amplifying the market need for storage and flexible resources.
  
• Catalyzes local supply chains and EPC mobilization in the region, reducing balance-of-system costs for subsequent SPP solar builds through scale and learning effects.
  
• Raises certainty for land and permitting stakeholders in Arkansas, expediting site control and interconnection milestones for co-located or adjacent projects.
  
• Demonstrates Big Tech willingness to contract in SPP, attracting additional hyperscaler procurement that can stack offtake for multi-phase solar hubs.
  
• May pressure PPA prices downward in near term via competition, but stabilize longer-term as transmission and curtailment risks price in, leading to more balanced contract structures (baseload/shape, upside sharing).
• Highlights curtailment risks in SPP South; developers likely to incorporate grid-forming inverters, advanced forecasting, and storage to secure deliverability and ancillary revenue.
  
• Informs utility IRPs across the SPP footprint that incremental solar is financeable with corporate partners, shifting portfolios toward higher PV shares before 2030.
  
• Net effect: accelerates SPP solar additions in the mid- to late-2020s by unlocking financing, de-risking queue assets, and motivating transmission/storage solutions that enable larger buildout.