Google Palo, Iowa Data Center: 650-Acre Annexation Near Duane Arnold Plant
Google's Palo, Iowa data center needs a city annexation of 650 acres beside the Duane Arnold nuclear plant; the planning commission reviews it Nov. 9. A Google-funded water study is due March 2027.
Chips & Power DeskEdited by Ege Erten
2 min readAI-assisted
The Duane Arnold Energy Center near Palo, Iowa, which NextEra expects to begin operating in 2029; Google has a power buying agreement with the plant.
Image: NextEra Energy
Source · Press image from the NextEra Energy website, used for news reporting.
Google will ask the city of Palo, Iowa, to annex a 650-acre site next to the Duane Arnold nuclear plant for a data center, Iowa Public Radio reported on Oct. 30, and Linn County approved on Oct. 28 a Google-funded water study of up to $242,000.
Palo's planning and zoning commission is set to review the annexation request on Nov. 9, according to Iowa Public Radio. Google would also seek 100 more acres to connect the site to the rest of the city limits, and it hopes the campus begins operating at the end of 2028.
Palo's planning commission reviews the annexation on Nov. 9, before the Google-funded water study reports in March 2027.
Illustration (AI-generated)
Palo Data Center Water Use and the County Study
At a four-hour community open house on Oct. 22, Google's Kiran Udayakumar said the company analyzed more than 100 years of Cedar River data and found enough capacity for all industries upstream and downstream of the site. He said Google will not use groundwater from bedrock aquifers such as the Silurian or the Jordan for any cooling operation. About 200 people attended, Iowa Public Radio reported. Neither Iowa Public Radio nor KCRG gives a gallons-per-day figure for the campus, so the size of the cooling draw is not yet public.
The county is running a separate check. The Linn County Board of Supervisors approved a memorandum of understanding on Oct. 28 under which Google pays up to $242,000 for the first phase of an independent water balance study, KCRG reported. Black & Veatch will do the work. The study covers the Cedar River, its alluvial aquifer and the Devonian-Silurian and Jordan aquifers under average, dry-year and extended-drought conditions, according to the county's planning director, Charlie Nichols.
Supervisors said Google has no role in the scope and will not see results before the public. The county expects results in March 2027.
How Duane Arnold's 2029 Restart Fits the Schedule
The site sits beside the plant that Voltgrid News covered among three US reactor restarts. Google already has a power purchase agreement with Duane Arnold, and NextEra Energy expects the plant to begin operating in 2029, Iowa Public Radio said. That is after Google's hoped-for end-2028 campus start, so the report leaves open how the data center would be powered in the gap.
Google said the data center would bring $170 million in tax revenue over 20 years to Palo, Linn County and the Cedar Rapids School District. Some residents had suspected the annexation was meant to avoid Linn County's data center ordinance, which included a costly water study. Linn County adopted a moratorium on new large data centers in July 2026 while it reviews its rules, KCRG reported.
Elsewhere, Google confirmed due diligence on a roughly 1,000-acre site in Virginia, as Voltgrid News reported on Goochland County.
What Is Still Unconfirmed on the Palo Annexation
Palo has not approved the annexation, and the Nov. 9 commission review is only the first step. The reports give no campus megawatts, building count or cooling design, and no daily water volume. The county study will not report before March 2027, which is after the date Google gives for starting operations.
