(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. is working to provide emission-free electricity to data centers by equipping a large natural gas-fired power plant with carbon-capture equipment.
Exxon is at the advanced stages of front-end engineering and design, a key step before a final investment decision is made, Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells said during a presentation to investors on Wednesday. The power plant will be “fully detached” from the electricity grid to speed up construction, she added.
“We’re working with other large cap industrials to rapidly deploy a solution that would provide both high reliability and low carbon-intensity power to meet the growing demand for computing power for artificial intelligence,” Mikells said.
Exxon’s new venture comes as US demand for electricity is projected to surge almost 16% over the next five years, more than triple the estimate from a year ago, driven by new data centers and factories, according to a report released earlier this month. But Exxon Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods was clear this isn’t a strategic shift for North America’s biggest oil explorer.
“We’re not getting into the power-generation business per se,” he said during a conference call with reporters earlier Wednesday. “We’re offering that as a package opportunity to really decarbonize power.”
The New York Times, which earlier reported on Exxon’s plans, said the company was designing a gas-fired power plant outfitted with carbon capture technology to supply electricity to data centers. The newspaper also said the company had secured land and talked to potential customers.
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