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Google backs proposed 400-MW Illinois gas plant designed to capture 90% of its CO₂

By TheFinanceBase Team7 min read
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Google has agreed to buy most of the electricity from Broadwing Energy, a proposed natural-gas-fired cogeneration plant in Decatur, Illinois. The project is planned to produce more than 400 MW of electricity and 1.5 million pounds of steam per hour, while capturing and permanently storing approximately 90% of the plant’s carbon-dioxide emissions once operational.

That does not mean Google owns or is constructing an operating plant, nor does it mean the electricity will be zero-emission or carbon-neutral. Broadwing remains a project under development, and its financing, construction, net output, methane emissions, storage performance, and real-world capture rate still require verification.

What Google agreed to

Announced on October 23, 2025, the deal is a corporate power-offtake agreement. Google intends to purchase most of Broadwing Energy’s electricity, giving the proposed plant a major customer and potentially helping it secure financing, construction commitments, and grid interconnection.

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Google is the intended power buyer and strategic partner—not the documented owner or builder of Broadwing. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The developers and participating companies described it as the first corporate offtake agreement for a new gas-fired power plant equipped with carbon capture and storage, a claim that should be attributed to them rather than treated as an independently verified global distinction. Google’s announcement and the developers’ announcement identify Google primarily as the offtaker.

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Where Broadwing Energy would be built

Broadwing is planned for Decatur, Illinois, at or adjacent to an industrial facility operated by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). The project is associated with the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region, whose electricity system serves Google data-center operations in the Midwest.

ADM already has experience handling and storing carbon dioxide from ethanol production at the site. That existing infrastructure may reduce some development challenges, but it does not guarantee that a new power plant’s carbon-capture and injection system will perform as planned.

What the proposed plant would do

Broadwing is designed as an integrated natural-gas cogeneration plant with carbon capture and storage:

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  • Electricity: more than 400 MW of planned generating capacity.
  • Industrial steam: approximately 1.5 million pounds per hour for ADM.
  • Fuel: natural gas.
  • Turbine: Mitsubishi Power’s M501JAC was identified in the project announcement.
  • Carbon management: post-combustion capture followed by compression, transport, and underground injection.

The 400-MW figure should be understood as planned generating capacity. It is not yet clear from the cited announcements how much electricity would be available to Google or the grid after the plant powers its own capture equipment, compressors, pumps, fans, and other auxiliary systems. That distinction matters because carbon capture creates an energy penalty: some of the plant’s output is consumed by the system intended to reduce emissions.

How the carbon-capture system would work

The proposed process can be summarized as:

Natural gas → turbine → electricity and steam → exhaust capture → CO₂ compression and transport → underground storage

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  1. Natural gas would be burned to produce electricity and steam.
  2. Carbon dioxide in the exhaust would be separated using post-combustion capture equipment.
  3. The captured CO₂ would be compressed and moved to storage infrastructure.
  4. It would be injected more than a mile underground into geological formations.
  5. The injection sites would operate under EPA Class VI requirements intended to regulate geological sequestration and protect underground sources of drinking water.

Google says the captured CO₂ would be stored in adjacent, EPA-approved Class VI facilities associated with ADM. Coverage of the project’s storage plan describes the intended underground-storage arrangement.

Capture and storage are separate performance questions. Capturing CO₂ at the plant does not by itself prove that all of it will be compressed, transported, injected, monitored, and retained permanently. Injection-well integrity, pressure management, monitoring quality, temporary shutdowns, and available storage capacity will all affect the final result.

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What “90% captured” actually means

The project developers and Google say Broadwing is designed to capture and permanently store approximately 90% of its plant CO₂ emissions once operational. The key words are designed, plant CO₂ emissions, and once operational.

The claim should not be translated into any of the following:

  • 90% of all greenhouse-gas emissions eliminated;
  • zero-emission gas power;
  • carbon-neutral electricity;
  • no climate impact; or
  • 90% of the emissions associated with extracting and delivering the natural gas captured.

The announced figure appears to concern CO₂ released from the plant’s exhaust. It does not establish the project’s full lifecycle emissions, including methane released during natural-gas production and transportation, construction emissions, residual CO₂, or emissions associated with the extra energy required to operate the capture system. TechCrunch’s coverage also noted that comparable carbon-capture projects have experienced significant performance problems.

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Why Google wants firm gas generation

Google says growing data-center electricity demand requires reliable, around-the-clock power. Wind and solar can provide large quantities of low-emission electricity but vary with weather and time of day. A firm generating resource can complement variable renewable generation and help support the regional grid.

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Google has also described a broader energy portfolio involving renewable power, nuclear energy, geothermal power, hydropower, and other technologies. Broadwing fits a strategy that separates two goals often confused in public discussion:

  • 24/7 electricity: power available when demand occurs.
  • Carbon-free electricity: generation with no direct or lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions under a defined accounting standard.
  • Low-carbon electricity: substantially lower emissions than a conventional alternative, but not necessarily zero.
  • Point-source capture: removal of a portion of the CO₂ emitted at the generating facility.

A gas plant with CCS may provide firm, lower-emission electricity than an uncaptured gas plant, but those descriptions are not interchangeable. Whether Google ultimately reports the power as clean or low-carbon will depend on its accounting rules, contractual structure, and the project’s measured performance.

Why the project could matter

Broadwing could become an important commercial test for gas-fired generation paired with carbon capture. A large corporate customer may help solve one of CCS’s persistent problems: finding a buyer willing to support a capital-intensive project before it is built.

Potential advantages include:

  • firm electricity for data centers and the surrounding grid;
  • industrial steam for ADM, improving the cogeneration model;
  • access to nearby CO₂ storage infrastructure;
  • potentially much lower stack CO₂ emissions than an equivalent uncaptured gas plant;
  • a model for corporate offtake agreements supporting other CCS projects; and
  • an estimated 750 full-time construction jobs over nearly four years, according to project representatives.

The job estimate and other economic benefits are claims from project participants, not independently verified employment results.

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The main risks and unresolved questions

It has not yet demonstrated its capture rate

Broadwing’s 90% figure is a future design projection. As of the latest status available in the cited coverage, the project should be described as proposed or under development. The available material does not independently confirm that construction has begun, that a final investment decision has occurred, or that the plant is operating.

Early reporting pointed to a final investment decision in the first half of 2026 and commercial operation in the early 2030s. Those were expected milestones, not confirmed operating dates.

The net power output may be lower than 400 MW

Carbon capture can consume a meaningful amount of a power plant’s energy. Readers need the plant’s net deliverable capacity—not just its nameplate capacity—to understand how much power is actually available after capture, compression, pumps, and other equipment are supplied.

Natural gas still brings upstream emissions

Even if the plant captures 90% of its stack CO₂, methane can escape during gas extraction, processing, and transportation. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, so the project’s climate impact cannot be evaluated from the stack-capture percentage alone.

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Storage must work over decades

Class VI approval is an important regulatory safeguard, but approval is not a guarantee that every future injection operation will perform perfectly. Relevant failure modes include well corrosion, pressure-management problems, unexpected subsurface migration, monitoring gaps, temporary shutdowns, capacity limits, and disputes over leakage or accounting.

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ADM’s prior storage experience is useful context, but a power plant can produce a different CO₂ stream and operating profile from an ethanol facility. The new project would need to demonstrate that its capture, transport, injection, and monitoring systems work together reliably.

Financing and construction remain decisive

The plant still faces normal infrastructure risks: financing, permits, grid-interconnection requirements, equipment availability, cost overruns, gas-price volatility, and possible changes to tax credits or other public incentives. A long-term Google offtake may strengthen the project’s financial case, but undisclosed contract terms make it impossible to judge from public announcements how costs and performance risks are allocated.

What to watch next

The most informative milestones will be:

  1. final investment decision;
  2. required air, pipeline, storage, and other permits;
  3. construction start and major equipment orders;
  4. grid-interconnection approval and any required network upgrades;
  5. completion of CO₂ transport and storage arrangements;
  6. commissioning and commercial operation;
  7. the first injection of captured CO₂; and
  8. independent operating data showing capture rates, net power output, downtime, and the amount of CO₂ permanently stored.

The most important technical disclosures will be whether the 90% figure is a design-capacity percentage, an annual average, or a contractual guarantee; whether it includes startup, shutdown, low-load, and maintenance periods; and how much additional gas is required to run the CCS equipment.

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Bottom line

Google’s Broadwing agreement is significant because it gives a proposed CCS-equipped gas plant a major corporate electricity customer. But the announcement is not evidence of an operating 400-MW facility or of zero-emission power. Broadwing remains a test of whether natural-gas generation, carbon capture, and permanent geological storage can deliver reliable electricity while achieving the developers’ projected emissions performance at commercial scale.

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Written by TheFinanceBase Team

The Team behind TheFinanceBase.

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