Category Archives: Google Green Blog

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

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.”

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U.S. 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.
U.S. 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.

Bring the world’s changing forests inside the classroom

Forests are the mighty lungs of our planet. They absorb carbon dioxide, and emit oxygen on which all people and animals on Earth rely. For the sake of our future, it is critical that all people, including the next generation, understand our global forests in order to manage them sustainably. Today, Science in the Classroom, Dr. Matt Hansen of the University of Maryland, and Google Earth Engine are presenting Global Forest Change Explorer to help engage young people in forest conservation.

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Tracking patterns of change in a hotspot zone, Alaska. 
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Fly to different parts of the world and compare data. 

The Global Forest Change Explorer website contains maps that are available for interactive analysis as well as an accompanying activity worksheet. The Explorer Tool allows students to quickly visualize trends in forest loss and gain, compare different countries and ecoregions, and apply the forest data to try to predict underlying causes where there is significant change in forest density. The Explorer Tool relies on open data that is used by remote sensing and GIS professionals in their work.

A number of years ago, Dr. Matt Hansen and a team of researchers at the University of Maryland turned to Google Earth Engine to map high-resolution global forest cover with Earth Engine's cloud-based image processing and computing. The team mapped global forest loss and gain from 2000 to 2012 at 30-meter resolution for the entire globe. In 2013, the methods and results were published in Science Magazine and online for everyone to explore. These findings are now an important part of the website Global Forest Watch, which gives governments and decision makers free access to the data and tools required to monitor and manage their forests. 

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Dr. Matt Hansen presenting at the World Economic Forum 

Science in the Classroom (SitC) thought this was great research to bring into the classroom and make available to anyone online. SitC packages annotated research papers with supplemental teaching materials to help pre-college and college students understand the structure and workings of scientific research. SitC and Google Earth Engine built the Global Forest Change Explorer to make Dr. Hansen’s data accessible to a younger audience.

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We live in a dynamic world where the pressures of population growth increasingly impact and threaten our forests. However, as technology, open data, and people continue to mobilize, we are given more tools to research the health of our planet. Educators can easily flip their classrooms into science labs by combining SitC materials with Global Forest Change Explorer. With these tools, students will leave sessions with richer understanding of environmental change, more curiosity, and a desire to actively participate in protecting our forests.

Get started with Global Forest Change Explorer today!

How technology can help us become more sustainable

We want to create technology that helps millions of others understand our changing world and live more sustainably—whether it’s connecting people with public transit routes, or using the data that powers Google Earth to help you see if your roof is good for solar panels. In honor of Earth Day this month, we’ve gathered together some of the ways Google can help you reduce your everyday emissions and learn more about preserving our world.

Monitoring forests and wildlife

Google Earth satellite technology gives scientists and environmentalists a way to measure and visualize changes of the world on both land and water. This technology can have great impact on monitoring endangered animal populations around the world. For example, with the help of Global Forest Watch, powered by Google Earth Engine, scientists at the University of Minnesota are suggesting that wild tiger populations may rebound by 2022, due to the efforts to restore tiger habitats in key regions.

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Anyone can now view tiger conservation areas (in orange and yellow above) using Global Forest Watch

Going solar

Looking to generate clean energy savings with solar power on your home? Check out Project Sunroof, a solar calculator that estimates the impact and potential savings of installing solar on the roof of your home. Taking Google Earth imagery and overlaying annual sun exposure and weather patterns, Sunroof is able to assess viable roof space for solar panel installation, estimate the value of solar and savings based on local energy costs, and connect you with providers of solar panels in your area.

As of this week, Sunroof expanded to 42 states across the U.S. (from 10 states in December), which makes imagery and data available for a solar analysis to 43 million rooftops. We’re also working with organizations like Sierra Club and their Ready for 100 campaign to help analyze the solar potential of cities across the US. 

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Project Sunroof shows you the solar potential of your home and city, allowing you to realize its renewable potential. The image on the right shows how much sunshine Denver, CO residents can capture with solar.

Measuring air pollutants 

For the past few years, Google Earth Outreach and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have been working together to map methane leaks from natural gas pipelines under our streets. Since methane is a very potent greenhouse gas (GHG), even small leaks can add up to big emissions that can hurt our climate. By attaching methane analyzers to select Street View cars, we’ve driven more than 7,500 miles and have mapped 4,200+ leaks in 10 cities. What we found ranges from an average of one leak per mile (in Boston) to one leak every 200 miles (in Indianapolis), demonstrating the effectiveness of techniques like using plastic piping instead of steel for pipeline construction. We hope utilities can use this data to prioritize the replacement of gas mains and service lines (like New Jersey’s PSE&G announced last fall). We’re also partnering with Aclima to measure many more pollutants with Street View cars in California communities through this year. Anyone can explore the maps at www.edf.org/methanemaps.

Mapping the invisible

Technology is crucial to increasing energy efficiency, raising climate change awareness, and sustainability efforts. To learn more about what you can do to help, take a moment to explore our Google Earth Outreach site, where these tools and more are described in depth.

Laying the foundation for renewable energy certification programs in Asia

At Google, we’ve made a long term commitment to power 100% of our operations with renewable energy. To that end, we’ve purchased more than 2 gigawatts of renewable energy to date, making us the world’s largest non-utility purchaser of renewables.

Our data centers – including our facilities in Taiwan and Singapore that help us provide people in Asia with faster, more reliable access to our tools and services – make up the majority of our electricity consumption. We are working to power all of our data centers around the world with renewable energy, but one of the challenges we face in Asia is that effective renewable energy certification programs simply aren’t available.

To help address this, we’re announcing today that we’re providing seed funding to theCenter for Resource Solutions (CRS) to begin laying the groundwork to establish such programs across Asia, starting in Taiwan. They have over 20 years of experience developing and operating renewable energy certification programs.

These kinds of programs are key in helping companies like Google actually know that the power we are buying comes from a renewable source. They work by “tagging” each MWh of energy generated from a source like wind or solar as renewable, which creates a renewable energy certificate (“REC”). This is especially important to us in Taiwan, where we are actively looking to purchase renewable energy for our data center.

The video below from CRS explains how this works for some customers. In Google’s case, we buy both the physical power and the RECs associated with that power, providing us with both the financial benefits of renewable energy and the assurance that the electricity we are buying is in fact renewable.

It may not sound like much, but these programs are critical to creating well-functioning voluntary renewable energy markets. For the dozens of Fortune 100 and Global 100 companies that have renewable energy commitments, RECs are a critical instrument to ensuring that renewable energy purchasing claims are accurate and verifiable. They have played a key role in enabling companies in the United States to grow their renewable energy purchasing from about 100 MW in 2012 to over 3,000 MW last year.

With this support from Google, CRS will begin examining how best to structure these programs across Asia to create robust voluntary renewable energy markets. They will also begin building a coalition of international stakeholders from the public, private, and NGO sectors to drive these efforts forward.

Organizations interested in supporting these efforts may get more information here.

Laying the Foundation for Renewable Energy Certification Programs in Asia

At Google, we’ve made a long term commitment to power 100% of our operations with renewable energy. To that end, we’ve purchased more than 2 gigawatts of renewable energy to date, making us the world’s largest non-utility purchaser of renewables.

Our data centers – including our facilities in Taiwan and Singapore that help us provide people in Asia with faster, more reliable access to our tools and services – make up the majority of our electricity consumption. We are working to power all of our data centers around the world with renewable energy, but one of the challenges we face in Asia is that effective renewable energy certification programs simply aren’t available.

To help address this, we’re announcing today that we’re providing seed funding to the Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) to begin laying the groundwork to establish such programs across Asia, starting in Taiwan. They have over 20 years of experience developing and operating renewable energy certification programs.

These kinds of programs are key in helping companies like Google actually know that the power we are buying comes from a renewable source. They work by “tagging” each MWh of energy generated from a source like wind or solar as renewable, which creates a renewable energy certificate (“REC”). This is especially important to us in Taiwan, where we are actively looking to purchase renewable energy for our data center.

The video below from CRS explains how this works for some customers. In Google’s case, we buy both the physical power and the RECs associated with that power, providing us with both the financial benefits of renewable energy and the assurance that the electricity we are buying is in fact renewable.



It may not sound like much, but these programs are critical to creating well-functioning voluntary renewable energy markets. For the dozens of Fortune 100 and Global 100 companies that have renewable energy commitments, RECs are a critical instrument to ensuring that renewable energy purchasing claims are accurate and verifiable. They have played a key role in enabling companies in the United States to grow their renewable energy purchasing from about 100 MW in 2012 to over 3,000 MW last year.

With this support from Google, CRS will begin examining how best to structure these programs across Asia to create robust voluntary renewable energy markets. They will also begin building a coalition of international stakeholders from the public, private, and NGO sectors to drive these efforts forward.

Organizations interested in supporting these efforts may get more information here.

Posted by Marsden Hanna, Global Energy Policy and Strategy

Google unites with other tech companies to support US Clean Power Plan

Today Google, along with Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, filed a legal brief with the DC Circuit Court supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. The CPP aims to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of electricity and puts an emphasis on renewable energy development and energy efficiency. The plan has been put on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.

Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have come together in this brief to offer our unique view as large consumers of energy. Collectively we used 10 million MWh of electricity last year, including at 50 data centers in 12 states. That means reliable and affordable electricity is integral to the continued growth and operation of all of our businesses and the services we offer to our users everywhere. We are all committed to sourcing our power in a sustainable way, and renewable energy makes good business sense for us all.   

At Google, we have been carbon neutral since 2007. We have signed contracts to purchase over 2GW of renewable energy — equivalent to taking nearly one million cars off the road — making us the largest non-utility renewable energy purchaser in the world. Just last year we signed the largest and most diverse purchase of renewable energy made by a non-utility company to power our data centers. The deal covers a series of new wind and solar projects around the world and takes us one step closer to our goal of powering 100% of our operations with clean energy. Above and beyond our own power purchases, we have also invested more than $2.5 billion in 22 other renewable projects around the world.

These efforts underline the seriousness of our commitment to renewables and we believe the CPP is an important step in the transition to a cleaner energy future. The message from our companies today is clear — we can meet the world’s future energy challenges in a way that drives innovation and growth while tackling climate change.

Google unites with other tech companies to support US Clean Power Plan.

Today Google, along with Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, filed a legal brief with the DC Circuit Court supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. The CPP aims to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of electricity and puts an emphasis on renewable energy development and energy efficiency. The plan has been put on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.

Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have come together in this brief to offer our unique view as large consumers of energy. Collectively we used 10 million MWh of electricity last year, including at 50 data centers in 12 states. That means reliable and affordable electricity is integral to the continued growth and operation of all of our businesses and the services we offer to our users everywhere. We are all committed to sourcing our power in a sustainable way, and renewable energy makes good business sense for us all.   

At Google, we have been carbon neutral since 2007. We have signed contracts to purchase over 2GW of renewable energy -- equivalent to taking nearly one million cars off the road -- making us the largest non-utility renewable energy purchaser in the world. Just last year we signed the largest and most diverse purchase of renewable energy made by a non-utility company to power our data centers. The deal covers a series of new wind and solar projects around the world and takes us one step closer to our goal of powering 100% of our operations with clean energy. Above and beyond our own power purchases, we have also invested more than $2.5 billion in 22 other renewable projects around the world.

These efforts underline the seriousness of our commitment to renewables and we believe the CPP is an important step in the transition to a cleaner energy future. The message from our companies today is clear -- we can meet the world’s future energy challenges in a way that drives innovation and growth while tackling climate change.
Posted by Michael Terrell, Principal, Energy and Global Infrastructure.