This week’s Funding Friday is light on the funding but heavy on the deals. In the past few days, electric carmaker Rivian and virtual power plant platform EnergyHub teamed up to integrate EV charging into EnergyHub’s distributed energy management platform; the power company AES signed 20-year power purchase agreements with Google to bring a Texas data center online; and microgrid company Scale acquired Reload, a startup that helps get data centers — and the energy infrastructure they require — up and running as quickly as possible. Even with venture funding taking a backseat this week, there’s never a dull moment.
Rivian Partners with EnergyHub for Grid-Friendly EV Charging
Ahead of the Rivian R2’s launch later this year, the EV-maker has partnered with EnergyHub, a company that aggregates distributed energy resources into virtual power plants, to give drivers the opportunity to participate in utility-managed charging programs. These programs coordinate the timing and rate of EV charging to match local grid conditions, enabling drivers to charge when prices are low and clean energy is abundant while avoiding periods of peak demand that would stress the distribution grid.
As Seth Frader-Thompson, EnergyHub’s president, said in a statement, “Every new EV on the road is a win for drivers and the environment, and by managing charging effectively, we ensure this growth remains a benefit for the grid as well.”
The partnership will fold Rivian into EnergyHub’s VPP ecosystem, giving the more than 150 utilities on its platform the ability to control when and how participating Rivian drivers charge. This managed approach helps alleviate grid stress, thus deferring the need for costly upgrades to grid infrastructure such as substations or transformers. Extending the lifespan of existing grid assets means lower electricity costs for ratepayers and more capacity to interconnect new large loads — such as data centers.
AES to Deliver 20 Years of Clean Power for Google Data Center
Google seems to be leaning hard into the “bring-your-own-power” model of data center development as it looks to gain an edge in the AI race.
The latest evidence came on Tuesday, when the power company and utility operator AES announced a partnership with the hyperscaler to provide on-site power for a new data center in Texas. signing 20-year power purchase agreements. AES will develop, own, and operate the generation assets, as well as all necessary electricity infrastructure, having already secured the land and interconnection agreements to bring this new power online. The data center is set to begin operations in 2027.
As of yet, neither company has disclosed the exact type of energy infrastructure that AES will be building, although Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s head of data center energy, said in a press release that it will be “clean.”
“In partnership with AES, we are bringing new clean generation online directly alongside the data center to minimize local grid impact and protect energy affordability,” she said.
This announcement came the same day the hyperscaler touted a separate agreement with the utility Xcel Energy to power another data center in Minnesota with 1.6 gigawatts of solar and wind generation and 300 megawatts of long-duration energy storage from the iron-air battery startup Form Energy.
Scale Acquires Reload to Fast-Track Power-Ready Sites for Hyperscalers
The microgrid developer Scale has acquired Reload, a “powered land” startup founded in 2024, for an undisclosed sum. What is “powered land”? Essentially, it’s land that Reload has secured and prepared for large data centers customers, obtaining permits and planning for onsite energy infrastructure such that sites can be energized immediately. This approach helps developers circumvent the years-long utility interconnection queue and builds on Scale’s growing focus on off-grid data center projects, as the company aims to deliver gigawatts of power for hyperscalers in the coming years powered by a diverse mix of sources, from solar and battery storage to natural gas and fuel cells.
Early last year, the Swedish infrastructure investor EQT acquired Scale. The goal, EQT said, was to enable the company “to own and operate billions of dollars in distributed generation assets.” At the time of the acquisition, Scale had 2.5 gigawatts of projects in its pipeline. In its latest press release the company announced it has secured a multi-hundred-megawatt contract with a leading hyperscaler, though it did not name names.
As Jan Vesely, a partner at EQT said in a statement, “By bringing together Reload’s campus development capabilities, Scale’s proven islanded power operating platform, and EQT’s deep expertise across energy, digital infrastructure and technology, we are supporting a more integrated approach to delivering power for next-generation digital infrastructure today.”
Bonus: Shine Technologies Nabs $240 in New Funding
Not to say there’s been no funding news to speak of!
As my colleague Alexander C. Kaufman reported in an exclusive on Thursday, fusion company Shine Technologies raised $240 million in a Series E round, the majority of which came from biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. Unlike most of its peers, Shine isn’t gunning to build electricity-generating reactors anytime soon. Instead, its initial focus is producing valuable medical isotopes — currently made at high cost via fission — which it can sell to customers such as hospitals, healthcare organizations, or biopharmaceutical companies. The next step, Shine says, is to scale into recycling radioactive waste from spent fission fuel.
“The basic premise of our business is fusion is expensive today, so we’re starting by selling it to the highest-paying customers first,” the company’s CEO, Greg Piefer told Kaufman, calling electricity customers the “lowest-paying customer of significance for fusion today.”
