Category Archives: Google Green Blog

Updates from Google’s green team on energy efficiency, renewable energy and corporate sustainability

DeepMind AI reduces energy used for cooling Google data centers by 40%

From smartphone assistants to image recognition and translation, machine learning already helps us in our everyday lives. But it can also help us to tackle some of the world’s most challenging physical problems -- such as energy consumption.  Large-scale commercial and industrial systems like data centers consume a lot of energy, and while much has been done to stem the growth of energy use, there remains a lot more to do given the world’s increasing need for computing power.

Reducing energy usage has been a major focus for us over the past  10 years: we have built our own super-efficient servers at Google, invented more efficient ways to cool our data centers and invested heavily in green energy sources, with the goal of being powered 100 percent by renewable energy. Compared to five years ago, we now get around 3.5 times the computing power out of the same amount of energy, and we continue to make many improvements each year.

Major breakthroughs, however, are few and far between -- which is why we are excited to share that by applying DeepMind’s machine learning to our own Google data centers, we’ve managed to reduce the amount of energy we use for cooling by up to 40 percent. In any large scale energy-consuming environment, this would be a huge improvement. Given how sophisticated Google’s data centers are already, it’s a phenomenal step forward.

The implications are significant for Google’s data centers, given its potential to greatly improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions overall. This will also help other companies who run on Google’s cloud to improve their own energy efficiency. While Google is only one of many data center operators in the world, many are not powered by renewable energy as we are. Every improvement in data center efficiency reduces total emissions into our environment and with technology like DeepMind’s, we can use machine learning to consume less energy and help address one of the biggest challenges of all -- climate change.

One of the primary sources of energy use in the data center environment is cooling. Just as your laptop generates a lot of heat, our data centers -- which contain servers powering Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, etc. -- also generate a lot of heat that must be removed to keep the servers running. This cooling is typically accomplished via large industrial equipment such as pumps, chillers and cooling towers. However, dynamic environments like data centers make it difficult to operate optimally for several reasons: 

  1. The equipment, how we operate that equipment, and the environment interact with each other in complex, nonlinear ways. Traditional formula-based engineering and human intuition often do not capture these interactions.
  2. The system cannot adapt quickly to internal or external changes (like the weather). This is because we cannot come up with rules and heuristics for every operating scenario.
  3. Each data center has a unique architecture and environment. A custom-tuned model for one system may not be applicable to another. Therefore, a general intelligence framework is needed to understand the data center’s interactions.
To address this problem, we began applying machine learning two years ago to operate our data centers more efficiently. And over the past few months, DeepMind researchers began working with Google’s data center team to significantly improve the system’s utility. Using a system of neural networks trained on different operating scenarios and parameters within our data centers, we created a more efficient and adaptive framework to understand data center dynamics and optimize efficiency.

We accomplished this by taking the historical data that had already been collected by thousands of sensors within the data center -- data such as temperatures, power, pump speeds, setpoints, etc. -- and using it to train an ensemble of deep neural networks. Since our objective was to improve data center energy efficiency, we trained the neural networks on the average future PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), which is defined as the ratio of the total building energy usage to the IT energy usage. We then trained two additional ensembles of deep neural networks to predict the future temperature and pressure of the data center over the next hour. The purpose of these predictions is to simulate the recommended actions from the PUE model, to ensure that we do not go beyond any operating constraints.

We tested our model by deploying on a live data center. The graph below shows a typical day of testing, including when we turned the machine learning recommendations on, and when we turned them off.

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Google DeepMind graph showing results of machine learning test on power usage effectiveness in Google data centers

Our machine learning system was able to consistently achieve a 40 percent reduction in the amount of energy used for cooling, which equates to a 15 percent reduction in overall PUE overhead after accounting for electrical losses and other non-cooling inefficiencies. It also produced the lowest PUE the site had ever seen. 

Because the algorithm is a general-purpose framework to understand complex dynamics, we plan to apply this to other challenges in the data center environment and beyond in the coming months. Possible applications of this technology include improving power plant conversion efficiency (getting more energy from the same unit of input), reducing semiconductor manufacturing energy and water usage, or helping manufacturing facilities increase throughput.

We are planning to roll out this system more broadly and will share how we did it in an upcoming publication, so that other data center and industrial system operators -- and ultimately the environment -- can benefit from this major step forward.

More Nordic wind power for our European data centers

Posted by Marc Oman, EU Energy Lead, Google Global Infrastructure


At the end of last year, we announced that we were purchasing a whopping 842 megawatts (MW) of additional renewable energy to power our operations and take us one step closer to running 100 percent of our operations on clean energy. Today, we walked further down that path by agreeing to purchase an additional 236 MW of energy from two new wind farms in Norway and Sweden.

These new Nordic power purchase agreements complement our three other Swedish wind deals and enable us to power even more of our European operations with renewable energy. In total, we now have seven purchase agreements in Europe, totalling more than 500 MW and 18 such deals globally, which means we’ve now purchased nearly 2.5 gigawatts (GW) worldwide – the equivalent of taking over 1 million cars off the road.

As with our other power purchase agreements, we’re buying the entire production of these new wind farms, situated in two great areas for onshore wind in Europe. In Norway, power will be generated by a 50-turbine project near Stavanger, which is set to be completed in late 2017. In Sweden, we’re buying power from a 22-turbine project, near Mariestad and Töreboda, which will be completed by early 2018. In both cases, we’ve signed long-term contracts that give us price certainty and help wind farm developers secure construction financing, in these cases from companies like Blackrock and Ardian.


One of our key goals is to enable the addition of new renewable energy generation capacity to the grid, rather than drawing power from existing facilities. And thanks to Europe’s increasingly integrated energy market, we’re able to buy wind energy in Norway and Sweden, and consume it elsewhere in Europe.


We’ve known for a long time that reducing energy usage and using renewables makes good business sense - we signed our first major power purchase agreement for 114 MW of Iowa wind in 2010. Others are discovering the benefits of renewables too - in the US alone, companies bought almost 3.5 GW of renewable energy last year. We’re pleased to have played a part in stimulating the market for corporate renewable energy purchasing and doing our share in the effort to mitigate climate change.


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Photo of wind turbine in Sweden by BMJ via Shutterstock

More Nordic wind power for our European data centers

At the end of last year, we announced that we were purchasing a whopping 842 megawatts (MW) of additional renewable energy to power our operations and take us one step closer to running 100 percent of our operations on clean energy. Today, we walked further down that path by agreeing to purchase an additional 236 MW of energy from two new wind farms in Norway and Sweden.

These new Nordic power purchase agreements complement our three other Swedish wind deals and enable us to power even more of our European operations with renewable energy. In total, we now have seven purchase agreements in Europe, totalling more than 500 MW and 18 such deals globally, which means we’ve now purchased nearly 2.5 gigawatts (GW) worldwide — the equivalent of taking over 1 million cars off the road.

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Photo of wind turbine in Sweden by BMJ via Shutterstock
As with our other power purchase agreements, we’re buying the entire production of these new wind farms, situated in two great areas for onshore wind in Europe. In Norway, power will be generated by a 50-turbine project near Stavanger, which is set to be completed in late 2017. In Sweden, we’re buying power from a 22-turbine project, near Mariestad and Töreboda, which will be completed by early 2018. In both cases, we’ve signed long-term contracts that give us price certainty and help wind farm developers secure construction financing, in these cases from companies like Blackrock and Ardian.
One of our key goals is to enable the addition of new renewable energy generation capacity to the grid, rather than drawing power from existing facilities. And thanks to Europe’s increasingly integrated energy market, we’re able to buy wind energy in Norway and Sweden, and consume it elsewhere in Europe.

We’ve known for a long time that reducing energy usage and using renewables makes good business sense — we signed our first major power purchase agreement for 114 MW of Iowa wind in 2010. Others are discovering the benefits of renewables too — in the U.S. alone, companies bought almost 3.5 GW of renewable energy last year. We’re pleased to have played a part in stimulating the market for corporate renewable energy purchasing and doing our share in the effort to mitigate climate change.

Data Centers Get Fit on Efficiency

Post content Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure

Google’s efforts to build the world’s most efficient data centers are beginning to give back -- in energy. A study just released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) shows that in the last five years, data center efficiency has kept energy usage almost flat despite a huge growth in demand for computing power.


In fact, compared to five years ago, we can now deliver over 3.5 times as much computing power for the same amount of electrical power. That means that even though we’re sending more email, watching more YouTube videos, and saving more digital photos, we’re actually using the same amount of energy.


Let’s dig into some numbers from the report:
  • In 2014, U.S. data centers used 70 billion kWh of energy -- equal to powering more than six million homes for a year.
  • This is a big shift in energy consumption:
    • From 2000 to 2005, usage grew 90 percent;
    • From 2005 to 2010, usage grew 24 percent;
    • From 2010 to 2014, usage grew 4 percent.
  • Energy use is expected to increase at the same rate of four percent from 2014 to 2020.


Stabilizing data center energy usage is great, but at Google, we believe we will go further than simply stopping the growth. As more IT users transition to public clouds and mobile use increases, total energy usage will likely go down even more. On the server side, ultra-efficient cloud capacity replaces older, less efficient corporate data centers, and on the client side, battery life pressures ensure that mobile devices use much less energy than desktops.



The cloud supports many products at a time, so it can more efficiently distribute resources among many users. That means we can do more with less energy—and businesses can too. In 2013, the Berkeley Lab published research we helped support, indicating that moving all office workers in the United States to the cloud could reduce the energy used by information technology by up to 87 percent. That’s equal to powering the city of Los Angeles for one year.


We are focused on creating platforms where everyone can benefit. Google builds hyperscale data centers that are designed to maximize infrastructure efficiency. We also began publishing our efficiency in 2008 and have been committed to promoting techniques for more efficient energy use to leaders in the IT industry, starting with the first data center efficiency summit in 2009 and our continued advances with machine learning.



Efficiency in data center operations like Google’s comes from shifting to super efficient computing, along with improvements in storage, network and infrastructure, employing more advanced cooling strategies, better power management software, and consolidating servers.



This news shows the rapid impact efficiency can have on the industry and the persistent opportunity we have to reduce energy use while creating a more powerful web.

Data centers get fit on efficiency

Google’s efforts to build the world’s most efficient data centers are beginning to give back -- in energy. A study just released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) shows that in the last five years, data center efficiency has kept energy usage almost flat despite a huge growth in demand for computing power.

In fact, compared to five years ago, we can now deliver over 3.5 times as much computing power for the same amount of electrical power. That means that even though we’re sending more email, watching more YouTube videos, and saving more digital photos, we’re using the same amount of energy.

Let’s dig into some numbers from the report:

  • In 2014, U.S. data centers used 70 billion kWh of energy -- equal to powering more than six million homes for a year.
  • This is a big shift in energy consumption:
       •  From 2000 to 2005, usage grew 90 percent.
       •  From 2005 to 2010, usage grew 24 percent;
       •  From 2010 to 2014, usage grew 4 percent.
  • Energy use is expected to increase at the same rate of four percent from 2014 to 2020.

Stabilizing data center energy usage is great, but at Google, we believe we will go further than simply stopping the growth. As more IT users transition to public clouds and mobile use increases, total energy usage will likely go down even more. On the server side, ultra-efficient cloud capacity replaces older, less efficient corporate data centers, and on the client side, battery life pressures ensure that mobile devices use much less energy than desktops.

The cloud supports many products at a time, so it can more efficiently distribute resources among many users. That means we can do more with less energy—and businesses can too. In 2013, the Berkeley Lab published research we helped support, indicating that moving all office workers in the United States to the cloud could reduce the energy used by information technology by up to 87 percent. That’s equal to powering the city of Los Angeles for one year.
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2013 U.S. Case Study: Energy Efficiency Potential of Cloud-based Software (Berkeley Lab)

2013 U.S. Case Study: Energy Efficiency Potential of Cloud-based Software (Berkeley Lab) Efficiency in data center operations like Google’s comes from shifting to super efficient computing, along with improvements in storage, network and infrastructure, employing more advanced cooling strategies, better power management software, and consolidating servers.

We are focused on creating platforms where everyone can benefit. Google builds hyperscale data centers that are designed to maximize infrastructure efficiency. We also began publishing our efficiency data in 2008 and have been promoting techniques for more efficient energy use to leaders in the IT industry, starting with the first data center efficiency summit in 2009 and our continued advances with machine learning.

These results show the rapid impact efficiency can have on the industry and the persistent opportunity we have to reduce energy use while creating a more powerful web.

Going #SolarforSolstice with Project Sunroof and the Sierra Club

Join us in celebrating the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere—the longest and brightest day of the year, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the sun more than any other day. Among the many gifts that summer brings—longer days, warm walks, and late evening dinners—solar energy is a largely underutilized benefit.

The sun delivers more energy to Earth in one hour than civilization uses in a whole year. On this long Summer Solstice day, solar panels on your roof could generate enough energy to run your refrigerator for almost two weeks—that’s 50 percent more energy than the average day. Yet globally only about 1 percent of our energy comes from solar. So today, Project Sunroof teamed up with the Sierra Club to share some tips on how you can better use the sun to generate energy and protect our Earth. 

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Solar energy is one of the cleanest energy sources available, and the U.S. has abundant solar resources. Project Sunroof is our attempt to make going solar a little easier. Homeowners can search their property and get a solar recommendation based on roof size, the amount of sun that hits it throughout the year, weather, applicable government incentives, and electricity rates and bill.

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Whether or not solar is an option for you, the Sierra Club has some additional tips on how to use the power of the sun and other forms of clean energy to slow the impacts of climate change. Check out Ready for 100 to learn more about how you can help us achieve 100% clean, renewable energy across the United States.

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Innovating for a Cleaner Energy Future

Energy ministers from around the globe visited the Bay Area this week for their first meeting following the signing of historic climate change agreements in France last year. The focus of the annual gathering for the seventh Clean Energy Ministerial, known as CEM7, was to discuss how to achieve the goals set in the Paris climate change deal as well as see some of the innovations coming out of Silicon Valley to tackle the issue head on.

A number of ministers embarked on a fact finding mission that included Google where they came to learn at first hand about our approach and commitment to clean energy and the climate.

Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure Urs Hölzle told the group that renewable energy is critical for businesses like ours -- from powering our data centers to our products and services.

“ Having pioneered some of the first corporate renewable power purchasing back in 2010-2011, we’re excited to see that this is becoming business-as-usual for companies everywhere. And at Google we continue to be committed to 100% renewable energy because this makes good business sense and is the right thing to do for the planet and for our users.”

US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz who led the visit to Google was joined by ministers and officials from countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Chile, India, Indonesia, and South Africa.

The group got the opportunity to see at first hand a number of projects aimed at everything from helping people make smart choices about solar power to how we power our data centers with renewable energy, and from advancing new approaches to wind power to helping consumers save energy in the home and the benefits of self driving cars.


 Self-driving cars could reduce the energy intensity per vehicle through a combination of more efficient vehicle designs, driving behaviors, routing, power usage, and capabilities for vehicles to drive closer to each other, according to U.S. Department of Energy, 2014.

In an effort to build on this week’s momentum the CEM launched a campaign that will promote solutions that enable more companies to purchase renewable power. As part of this effort, Google has agreed later this year to host national governments, renewable energy buyers and suppliers, NGOs, and other interested groups as they look for ways to further unlock corporate renewable energy demand in CEM countries.


Mars Hanna, Global Energy Policy and Strategy