Intersect Power

Overview

Intersect Power is a San Francisco-based clean energy developer focused on large-scale solar, battery storage, and clean hydrogen. Founded in 2016 by Sheldon Kimber, it built a reputation as one of the most sophisticated independent developers in the U.S. market, known for project scale, creative project finance, and an early push into green hydrogen production at co-located renewable sites. In March 2026 Alphabet completed its roughly $4.75 billion acquisition, bringing one of the most promising independent clean energy platforms under one of the world's largest corporate clean energy buyers. Intersect continues to operate as an independent subsidiary under Kimber.

At the time of acquisition, Intersect managed roughly $15 billion of assets in operation or under construction, including about 2.2 gigawatts of operating solar and 2.4 gigawatt-hours of battery storage, primarily in California and Texas, with a development pipeline of approximately 25 gigawatts across solar, storage, and clean hydrogen. The company had raised over $8 billion in combined equity and project financing. The full acquisition followed a December 2024 strategic partnership in which Google and TPG Rise Climate led an $800 million investment to co-develop data centers alongside on-site clean power.

Development strategy

Intersect's development model emphasized scale, targeting utility-scale solar and storage projects in the 200 MW to 1 GW-plus range, and vertical integration across the development lifecycle: site control, permitting, interconnection, project finance, engineering, and construction management. That let the company capture value across the full chain rather than selling projects at early stages to utilities or independent power producers.

It was particularly active in California, where its projects supported the state's aggressive renewable and storage procurement mandates, and in Texas, where merchant solar and storage economics grew more attractive as ERCOT market dynamics rewarded dispatchable clean generation. The ability to co-locate solar and large-scale battery storage in a single project, delivering firm dispatchable renewable power, separated Intersect from pure-play solar developers.

Clean hydrogen initiative

One of Intersect's most distinctive bets was an early and aggressive push into green hydrogen. The company developed a concept it called Stacking: co-locating electrolyzers at large solar and storage sites to produce green hydrogen from excess renewable electricity, serving both grid storage and hydrogen offtake markets from one integrated facility.

Those projects were positioned to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act's clean hydrogen production tax credit under Section 45V, worth up to $3 per kilogram for the lowest-emission production. Intersect was developing several multi-gigawatt hydrogen-capable projects in Texas and California aimed at industrial and fuel cell customers. Hydrogen was a distinctive early bet, and the Google partnership and eventual acquisition center on solar-plus-storage energy parks for data centers, which leaves hydrogen as a longer-dated option rather than the core of the near-term thesis.

The Alphabet acquisition

Alphabet agreed on December 22, 2025 to acquire Intersect Power for about $4.75 billion in cash plus assumed debt, and closed on March 10, 2026. It was one of the largest acquisitions of a renewable energy developer by a technology company and a signal of how seriously hyperscalers now treat energy supply security. Google has been a major corporate PPA buyer for over a decade and has committed to running on round-the-clock carbon-free energy by 2030. Owning a large-scale developer directly, rather than procuring through PPAs, gives it far greater control over the timing, location, and configuration of new capacity. The deal built on the December 2024 partnership, where Google and TPG Rise Climate led an $800 million investment and took a minority position before the full buyout.

The transaction reflects technology companies moving from passive clean energy buyers to active infrastructure owners. Rather than relying on the merchant market to deliver clean energy where and when data centers need it, Google is building a vertically integrated supply chain. Intersect's pipeline in CAISO and ERCOT, the two grids hosting the largest concentrations of U.S. data center capacity, made it strategically compelling. As part of the transaction, Intersect's grid-tied merchant power business was spun off by its shareholders, TPG, Google, Climate Adaptive Infrastructure, and Greenbelt Capital, into a new independent power producer called IPX Power, leaving the Alphabet-owned company focused on data-center energy parks.

Significance for the market

The acquisition intensified an industry debate about hyperscalers as direct owners of generation infrastructure. Microsoft's investment in nuclear through Constellation's Three Mile Island restart, Amazon's acquisition of Talen Energy's nuclear data center campus, and Google's Intersect deal together suggest the largest technology companies no longer trust the merchant market to deliver clean energy at the pace, location, and reliability their data center growth requires.

For independent developers the transaction cuts both ways. Google's willingness to pay an acquisition price for a development-stage company validated the value of large project pipelines. The entry of well-capitalized technology companies as direct developers also introduces formidable competition for land, interconnection queue positions, and engineering talent.

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