Google will be the main buyer of electricity from a first-of-its-kind $350 million solar power plant being built on a former West Virginia strip mine, combining lithium batteries with longer-duration zinc packs to power the tech company’s data centers around the clock with clean energy.

The plant is being built by developer MN8 Energy and includes 86 megawatts of solar, 280 megawatt-hours of lithium-iron phosphate batteries for short-term energy storage and 100 MWh of zinc-based batteries made by Eos Energy to provide power overnight for at least 10 hours. It will be connected to the primary East Coast power grid when it’s fully completed in 2030, and Google will buy electricity from the project for the next 20 years, MN8 CEO Jon Yoder told Forbes.

“This is a project designed to push the boundaries of technology,” he said. “We’re not claiming that........

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