Alabama Gov. Robert J. Bentley speaks at a press conference announcing Google’s $600 million data center.Existing U.S. Google data centers
* Brekley County, S.C. * Council Bluffs, Iowa * Douglas County, Ga. * Mayes County, Okla. * Lenoir, N.C. * The Dalles, Ore.
TVA workers at the Widows Creek power plant are seen in Stevenson, Ala.STEVENSON, Ala. — Google plans to build a $600 million data processing center here, adding 75 to 100 jobs and helping to fill the void created from TVA’s pending shut down of the Widows Creek Fossil Plant.
The massive data processing center in North Alabama will be one of only 14 in the world for Google.
“Selecting the Widows Creek site to build our newest data center came after an extensive search,” said Gary Demasi, director of data center energy and location strategy for Google. “The idea of repurposing a former coal generating site and powering our new facility with renewable energy especially reliable, affordable energy that we can count on 24/7 with the existing infrastructure in place was attractive.”
Alabama officials have been trying to recruit a major data processing center to the state for the past three years since the Legislature in 2012 passed the Alabama Data Processing Center Economic Incentive Enhancement Act.