Tag Archives: Environment

Powering a Cleaner Energy Future in Europe

On February 2nd, we hosted an event at our Brussels office to discuss how businesses like Google are turning to renewable energy and consider how EU energy policies can meet the changing needs of consumers and the marketplace. With leaders from both the private sector and policy community, including keynote speaker, European Commission Vice President for the Energy, Maroš Šefčovič and our panelist, MEP Kathleen Van Brempt, we hosted the event with RE100, a non-profit initiative of influential businesses committed to 100% renewable energy.

Last December, we were proud to announce that Google is on track to reach 100% renewable energy for our  global operations, including both our data centers and offices in 2017. We have committed to renewable energy both to ensure we run our company as sustainably as possible and because it makes business sense as renewables become increasingly cost competitive. To date we’ve signed contracts for 2.6 gigawatts of renewable projects, making- us the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power.

Re100 Event February 2017 2

At out event we spoke alongside other companies committed to renewable energy, such as Nestle, IKEA, and Swiss Re, amongst others, who are also demonstrating through their own efforts that renewables make good business sense.  The business case for renewable energy was further highlighted by European Commission Vice President for Energy, Maroš Šefčovič who emphasized that the production costs for renewables have drastically reduced in the last 10 years.

Of course, there are still challenges facing the renewable energy market, many of which are addressed in comprehensive measures on renewables and energy market design recently proposed by the European Commission. Two key topics of discussion at the event were the need for sound policies to help remove barriers to deployment of renewables and more cross-border cooperation in order to implement Europe-wide initiatives.

At Google, we are excited to see so much progress and are committed to working together with policy maker and others to drive a cleaner energy future in Europe.

Commissioner Re100
European Commission Vice President for Energy, Maroš Šefčovič powering his breakfast smoothie with renewable energy. :-)

Ecology at Google brings holistic design to our outdoor environments

Along the Southern edge of the San Francisco Bay, our headquarters sit at the intersection of Silicon Valley’s physical footprint and a diverse and increasingly fragile ecosystem. From an ecological standpoint, the area presents both unique challenges and singular opportunities. Federally protected Burrowing Owls call this area home, and Snowy and Great Egrets return every spring to raise their chicks in sycamore trees on our campus. Far above, the Pacific Flyway buzzes with migratory birds in search of once vast willow groves.

It’s with this in mind that our real estate and workplace services group launched the Ecology Program in 2014. The program seeks to incorporate the best available science into the design of Google’s outdoor spaces, create partnerships to support the implementation and growth of this science, and share programmatic resources publicly for all to use.

Google Ecology Program

Google Ecology Program

We’ve long been an industry leader in the design of healthy and sustainable indoor environments, but only recently have we formalized a science-based strategy to create and maintain healthy and resilient outdoor environments. Traditional landscape designs, while well-intentioned, don’t always implement data-driven strategies to promote diverse and enduring habitats—habitats that can withstand climate change, include drought-tolerant and native plantings, and support pollinators, birds and native biodiversity. To lay this foundation for our campus’ outdoor spaces, we’ve created resources for design teams and initiated efforts to “re-oak” Silicon Valley with native valley oaks, expand the footprint of vanishing willow groves, and create new habitat through projects such as Charleston East and the expansion of the Charleston Retention Basin.

Ecology Tenets Infographic

The program also seeks to engage and enhance the experience of individual Googlers and local residents with interactive learning sessions and home planting guidance. During each of the last two springs, we’ve partnered with the Santa Clara Audubon Society to sponsor informational “Egret Office Hours” and birding tours for the public throughout our South Bay Campus.

Google Ecology Program Infographic

From the onset, we’ve known that we can’t “go it alone” in implementing successful ecological initiatives. We partnered with the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) to create the Resilient Silicon Valley vision, a roadmap to guide ecological planning in the region. Through this partnership, we can engage with the regional community while providing a framework for a science-based approach to ecology that anyone can access. We also launched a small Resilient Silicon Valley Awards program in 2016, providing financial sponsorships to support 10 regional environmental organizations, creating a coalition to advance this shared Bay Area vision.

We see great potential to transform our local and regional landscapes through engagement and collaboration. While ecology and tech may not be obvious partners, science, data-driven analysis and transparency are the pillars that will guide meaningful and lasting change in the outdoor environments that we and so many others call home.

Ecology at Google brings holistic design to our outdoor environments

Along the Southern edge of the San Francisco Bay, our headquarters sit at the intersection of Silicon Valley’s physical footprint and a diverse and increasingly fragile ecosystem. From an ecological standpoint, the area presents both unique challenges and singular opportunities. Federally protected Burrowing Owls call this area home, and Snowy and Great Egrets return every spring to raise their chicks in sycamore trees on our campus. Far above, the Pacific Flyway buzzes with migratory birds in search of once vast willow groves.

It’s with this in mind that our real estate and workplace services group launched the Ecology Program in 2014. The program seeks to incorporate the best available science into the design of Google’s outdoor spaces, create partnerships to support the implementation and growth of this science, and share programmatic resources publicly for all to use.

Google Ecology Program

Google Ecology Program

We’ve long been an industry leader in the design of healthy and sustainable indoor environments, but only recently have we formalized a science-based strategy to create and maintain healthy and resilient outdoor environments. Traditional landscape designs, while well-intentioned, don’t always implement data-driven strategies to promote diverse and enduring habitats—habitats that can withstand climate change, include drought-tolerant and native plantings, and support pollinators, birds and native biodiversity. To lay this foundation for our campus’ outdoor spaces, we’ve created resources for design teams and initiated efforts to “re-oak” Silicon Valley with native valley oaks, expand the footprint of vanishing willow groves, and create new habitat through projects such as Charleston East and the expansion of the Charleston Retention Basin.

Ecology Tenets Infographic

The program also seeks to engage and enhance the experience of individual Googlers and local residents with interactive learning sessions and home planting guidance. During each of the last two springs, we’ve partnered with the Santa Clara Audubon Society to sponsor informational “Egret Office Hours” and birding tours for the public throughout our South Bay Campus.

Google Ecology Program Infographic

From the onset, we’ve known that we can’t “go it alone” in implementing successful ecological initiatives. We partnered with the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) to create the Resilient Silicon Valley vision, a roadmap to guide ecological planning in the region. Through this partnership, we can engage with the regional community while providing a framework for a science-based approach to ecology that anyone can access. We also launched a small Resilient Silicon Valley Awards program in 2016, providing financial sponsorships to support 10 regional environmental organizations, creating a coalition to advance this shared Bay Area vision.

We see great potential to transform our local and regional landscapes through engagement and collaboration. While ecology and tech may not be obvious partners, science, data-driven analysis and transparency are the pillars that will guide meaningful and lasting change in the outdoor environments that we and so many others call home.

We’re set to reach 100% renewable energy — and it’s just the beginning

Every year people search on Google trillions of times; every minute people upload more than 400 hours of YouTube videos. All of that takes an incredible amount of processing power — which means energy. Our engineers have spent years perfecting Google's data centers, making them 50 percent more energy efficient than the industry average. But we still need a lot of energy to power the products and services that our users depend on. We began purchasing renewable energy to reduce our carbon footprint and address climate change — but it also makes business sense.

I’m thrilled to announce that in 2017 Google will reach 100% renewable energy for our global operations — including both our data centers and offices. We were one of the first corporations to create large-scale, long-term contracts to buy renewable energy directly; we signed our first agreement to purchase all the electricity from a 114-megawatt wind farm in Iowa, in 2010. Today, we are the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy. That’s bigger than many large utilities and more than twice as much as the 1.21 gigawatts it took to send Marty McFly back to the future.

greent-wp-charts-Cumulative-Corporate-Renewal.png

To reach this goal we’ll be directly buying enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity our operations consume, globally. And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases.

Over the last six years, the cost of wind and solar came down 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively, proving that renewables are increasingly becoming the lowest cost option. Electricity costs are one of the largest components of our operating expenses at our data centers, and having a long-term stable cost of renewable power provides protection against price swings in energy.

Our 20 renewable energy projects also help support communities, from Grady County, OK, to Rutherford County, NC, to the Atacama Region of Chile to municipalities in Sweden. To date, our purchasing commitments will result in infrastructure investments of more than $3.5 billion globally, about two-thirds of that in the United States. These projects also generate tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue to local property owners, and tens of millions more to local and national governments in tax revenue.

So, we’re on track to match our global energy consumption on an annual basis by next year. But this is just the first step. As we look to the immediate future, we’ll continue to pursue these direct contracts as we grow, with an even greater focus on regional renewable energy purchases in places where we have data centers and significant operations. Since the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day, we’ll also broaden our purchases to a variety of energy sources that can enable renewable power, every hour of every day. Our ultimate goal is to create a world where everyone — not just Google — has access to clean energy. For more on these next steps, read our white paper.   

google_ppa.jpg
How Google purchases and uses renewable energy.

Operating our business in an environmentally sustainable way has been a core value from the beginning, and we’re always working on new ideas to make sustainability a reality — like enabling the building of healthy workplaces and creating a living, breathing dashboard for the planet. We’ve reported our carbon footprint and published information on our sustainability programs for many years in white papers, blog posts, and on our website. Now, we’ve put all this information together in a new Environmental Report.

You can also check out our new environment website, where we share stories of how we are finding new ways to do more while using less. Most of our on-campus sustainability initiatives were started by a few passionate Googlers, and have now grown into company-wide efforts. From the solar panels on our roofs to our bike-to-work program, these initiatives sit at the heart of our company culture and help both us and our users reduce our impact on the environment.

economic impact
Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world.

The science tells us that tackling climate change is an urgent global priority. We believe the private sector, in partnership with policy leaders, must take bold steps and that we can do so in a way that leads to growth and opportunity. And we have a responsibility to do so — to our users and the environment.

We have lots of progress left to make, but these achievements we're announcing today feel like a breath of fresh air. Now, back to work.

We’re set to reach 100% renewable energy — and it’s just the beginning

Every year people search on Google trillions of times; every minute people upload more than 400 hours of YouTube videos. All of that takes an incredible amount of processing power — which means energy. Our engineers have spent years perfecting Google's data centers, making them 50 percent more energy efficient than the industry average. But we still need a lot of energy to power the products and services that our users depend on. We began purchasing renewable energy to reduce our carbon footprint and address climate change — but it also makes business sense.

I’m thrilled to announce that in 2017 Google will reach 100% renewable energy for our global operations — including both our data centers and offices. We were one of the first corporations to create large-scale, long-term contracts to buy renewable energy directly; we signed our first agreement to purchase all the electricity from a 114-megawatt wind farm in Iowa, in 2010. Today, we are the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy. That’s bigger than many large utilities and more than twice as much as the 1.21 gigawatts it took to send Marty McFly back to the future.

Google PPA Chart

To reach this goal we’ll be directly buying enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity our operations consume, globally. And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases.

Over the last six years, the cost of wind and solar came down 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively, proving that renewables are increasingly becoming the lowest cost option. Electricity costs are one of the largest components of our operating expenses at our data centers, and having a long-term stable cost of renewable power provides protection against price swings in energy.

Our 20 renewable energy projects also help support communities, from Grady County, OK, to Rutherford County, NC, to the Atacama Region of Chile to municipalities in Sweden. To date, our purchasing commitments will result in infrastructure investments of more than $3.5 billion globally, about two-thirds of that in the United States. These projects also generate tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue to local property owners, and tens of millions more to local and national governments in tax revenue.

So, we’re on track to match our global energy consumption on an annual basis by next year. But this is just the first step. As we look to the immediate future, we’ll continue to pursue these direct contracts as we grow, with an even greater focus on regional renewable energy purchases in places where we have data centers and significant operations. Since the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day, we’ll also broaden our purchases to a variety of energy sources that can enable renewable power, every hour of every day. Our ultimate goal is to create a world where everyone — not just Google — has access to clean energy. For more on these next steps, read our white paper.   

google_ppa.jpg
How Google purchases and uses renewable energy.

Operating our business in an environmentally sustainable way has been a core value from the beginning, and we’re always working on new ideas to make sustainability a reality — like enabling the building of healthy workplaces and creating a living, breathing dashboard for the planet. We’ve reported our carbon footprint and published information on our sustainability programs for many years in white papers, blog posts, and on our website. Now, we’ve put all this information together in a new Environmental Report.

You can also check out our new environment website, where we share stories of how we are finding new ways to do more while using less. Most of our on-campus sustainability initiatives were started by a few passionate Googlers, and have now grown into company-wide efforts. From the solar panels on our roofs to our bike-to-work program, these initiatives sit at the heart of our company culture and help both us and our users reduce our impact on the environment.

economic impact
Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world.

The science tells us that tackling climate change is an urgent global priority. We believe the private sector, in partnership with policy leaders, must take bold steps and that we can do so in a way that leads to growth and opportunity. And we have a responsibility to do so — to our users and the environment.

We have lots of progress left to make, but these achievements we're announcing today feel like a breath of fresh air. Now, back to work.

We’re set to reach 100% renewable energy — and it’s just the beginning

Every year people search on Google trillions of times; every minute people upload more than 400 hours of YouTube videos. All of that takes an incredible amount of processing power — which means energy. Our engineers have spent years perfecting Google's data centers, making them 50 percent more energy efficient than the industry average. But we still need a lot of energy to power the products and services that our users depend on. We began purchasing renewable energy to reduce our carbon footprint and address climate change — but it also makes business sense.

I’m thrilled to announce that in 2017 Google will reach 100% renewable energy for our global operations — including both our data centers and offices. We were one of the first corporations to create large-scale, long-term contracts to buy renewable energy directly; we signed our first agreement to purchase all the electricity from a 114-megawatt wind farm in Iowa, in 2010. Today, we are the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy. That’s bigger than many large utilities and more than twice as much as the 1.21 gigawatts it took to send Marty McFly back to the future.

Google PPA Chart

To reach this goal we’ll be directly buying enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity our operations consume, globally. And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases.

Over the last six years, the cost of wind and solar came down 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively, proving that renewables are increasingly becoming the lowest cost option. Electricity costs are one of the largest components of our operating expenses at our data centers, and having a long-term stable cost of renewable power provides protection against price swings in energy.

Our 20 renewable energy projects also help support communities, from Grady County, OK, to Rutherford County, NC, to the Atacama Region of Chile to municipalities in Sweden. To date, our purchasing commitments will result in infrastructure investments of more than $3.5 billion globally, about two-thirds of that in the United States. These projects also generate tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue to local property owners, and tens of millions more to local and national governments in tax revenue.

So, we’re on track to match our global energy consumption on an annual basis by next year. But this is just the first step. As we look to the immediate future, we’ll continue to pursue these direct contracts as we grow, with an even greater focus on regional renewable energy purchases in places where we have data centers and significant operations. Since the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day, we’ll also broaden our purchases to a variety of energy sources that can enable renewable power, every hour of every day. Our ultimate goal is to create a world where everyone — not just Google — has access to clean energy. For more on these next steps, read our white paper.   

google_ppa.jpg
How Google purchases and uses renewable energy.

Operating our business in an environmentally sustainable way has been a core value from the beginning, and we’re always working on new ideas to make sustainability a reality — like enabling the building of healthy workplaces and creating a living, breathing dashboard for the planet. We’ve reported our carbon footprint and published information on our sustainability programs for many years in white papers, blog posts, and on our website. Now, we’ve put all this information together in a new Environmental Report.

You can also check out our new environment website, where we share stories of how we are finding new ways to do more while using less. Most of our on-campus sustainability initiatives were started by a few passionate Googlers, and have now grown into company-wide efforts. From the solar panels on our roofs to our bike-to-work program, these initiatives sit at the heart of our company culture and help both us and our users reduce our impact on the environment.

economic impact
Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world.

The science tells us that tackling climate change is an urgent global priority. We believe the private sector, in partnership with policy leaders, must take bold steps and that we can do so in a way that leads to growth and opportunity. And we have a responsibility to do so — to our users and the environment.

We have lots of progress left to make, but these achievements we're announcing today feel like a breath of fresh air. Now, back to work.

Source: Google Cloud


Project Sunroof New Data Explorer Tool

Google has always been a proponent of  clean energy, and solar power has been a central part of our vision. Over the past year, Project Sunroof has been helping homeowners explore whether they should go solar - offering solar estimates for over 43 million houses across 42 states. Solar installations today are growing rapidly, but there remains tremendous untapped potential as only a half a percent of US electricity comes from solar power.

Today we’re excited to be taking Project Sunroof a step further by launching a new data explorer tool to enable solar estimates for entire communities, in addition to individual homes, by leveraging 3D rooftop geometry from Google Earth to estimate the solar potential for millions of rooftops in America.  The tool helps communities, cities and municipalities easily visualize how many rooftops are suitable to install solar, how much power they could collectively generate, as well as how much carbon could be displaced by deploying rooftop solar at scale. Sunroof’s solar potential reports can also be easily shared amongst community members, researchers and policymakers directly from the the tool itself. Anyone can use this tool for free, by simply entering in a state, county, city, or zip code to receive a custom analysis.
Sunroof Image 1
Sunroof Image 2
Sunroof Image 3

Click here to see the solar potential of your community


Rooftop solar is a viable option for many cities today. Sunroof’s data explorer found that in more than 90% of communities that the tool covers within 42 states nationwide, well over half the rooftops are viable for solar. Today, cities like Denver and organizations like League of Cities see great value in using the data explorer tool to evaluate whether solar can drive economic savings and growth, as well as help transition energy consumption to lower carbon sources for their communities. Here’s what they have to say;

Cooper Martin, Program Director of the Sustainable Cities Institute,  League of Cities

“Our Sustainable Cities Institute program aims to provide guidance and information for governments that want to pursue sustainability and ensuring that solar is easy, fast and cheap to install. Sunroof's Data Explorer tool can help inform city stakeholders about the opportunity of solar energy, and the work that is needed to support solar-friendly policies. ”
Sunroof Image 4

Thomas J. Herrod, Climate and Policy analyst, City of Denver

“As a City with a bold and ambitious goal of reducing 80% of Greenhouse Gas emissions by the year 2050,  Project Sunroof data is a key tool in our arsenal of potential strategies.  Rooftop solar is already a viable option within Denver, but this tool helps us refine our efforts to ensure equity in our outreach, efficiency in our efforts, and measurement in our management resources.  Of equal importance is the ability to identify where rooftop solar may not be an option – helping us identify areas where other renewable energy programs offered by our Utility can fill the gap.  We are thrilled to be able to utilize Project Sunroof in our Climate mitigation efforts and help inform our community about the bountiful resource that renewable energy can provide.”

Mark Trout, CIO, Vivint

“In previous analysis we've done, comparing Project Sunroof data estimates to actual systems performing in the field, we've found Google's information to be a highly accurate source for predicting the solar performance of a rooftop system. At Vivint Solar we are constantly focusing on how to better delight our customers and advance the solar industry through leading innovation. Project Sunroof is a prime example how technology can improve the consumer experience and accelerate solar deployment here in the US.”

The release of the data explorer tool marks another milestone across the Project Sunroof initiative where the use of Google’s high quality information has the potential to accelerate the growth of solar by capturing the public imagination, and helping communities make smarter decisions in their transition to cleaner power sources.

Source: Google LatLong


Renewable energy adoption takes a new turn with partnership in the Netherlands

At Google, we have been committed to the adoption of clean energy since 2010, and are working aggressively to meet our goal of powering 100 percent of our operations with renewable energy.

We are excited to announce a unique partnership that Google has formed in the Netherlands with three leading companies, allowing us to significantly contribute to delivering on the Dutch renewable energy target of 14 percent by 2020, agreed to in the 2013 Dutch Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth.

Together with AkzoNobel, DSM, and Philips, we’ve made a long-term agreement to jointly source power from renewable energy projects. The consortium represents a new approach for corporations to explore market opportunities, enter into renewable Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and meet the demands of growing sustainability targets in a cost-effective and scalable way.

The first agreement of the long-term collaboration purchases the entire power production from a new wind farm established by a cooperative of 4,000 people in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Five percent of the power production will be reserved for the shareholders, with each company receiving a quarter share of the remaining 95 percent of energy. It’s the first time in the Netherlands that a group of multinational companies has teamed up with local citizens to create what is effectively a consumer-to-business energy partnership.

The consortium has agreed to source a total of 0.35 terawatt hours (TWh) a year from Windpark Krammer once it becomes fully operational in 2019. This is equivalent to the total annual consumption of 100,000 households.

The agreement is both crucial for the funding of the wind farm and for the renewable energy goals of all four companies. For Google, this agreement will allow our data center in Eemshaven to be powered with renewable energy from day one when it opens later this year.

Our participation in this consortium is part of our broader global strategy to procure renewable energy for our data centers, and build on similar agreements signed in other countries. Google now has six PPAs in the Nordics, seven in Europe, and 19 globally.

Additionally, we have purchased 148 megawatts (MW) of new renewable energy in Sweden, to supply our European data centers with renewable energy. This PPA will secure 70 percent of the production over ten years of this 41-turbine wind farm located in Lehtirova, northern Sweden. Each new wind farm is being built in one of the best areas for onshore wind in Europe. 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.

As the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world, we are thrilled to be joining forces with these leading companies in the Netherlands. By working together, we can realize a clean energy future–faster than ever.

Renewable energy adoption takes a new turn with partnership in the Netherlands

At Google, we have been committed to the adoption of clean energy since 2010, and are working aggressively to meet our goal of powering 100 percent of our operations with renewable energy.

We are excited to announce a unique partnership that Google has formed in the Netherlands with three leading companies, allowing us to significantly contribute to delivering on the Dutch renewable energy target of 14 percent by 2020, agreed to in the 2013 Dutch Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth.

Together with AkzoNobel, DSM, and Philips, we’ve made a long-term agreement to jointly source power from renewable energy projects. The consortium represents a new approach for corporations to explore market opportunities, enter into renewable Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and meet the demands of growing sustainability targets in a cost-effective and scalable way.

The first agreement of the long-term collaboration purchases the entire power production from a new wind farm established by a cooperative of 4,000 people in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Five percent of the power production will be reserved for the shareholders, with each company receiving a quarter share of the remaining 95 percent of energy. It’s the first time in the Netherlands that a group of multinational companies has teamed up with local citizens to create what is effectively a consumer-to-business energy partnership.

The consortium has agreed to source a total of 0.35 terawatt hours (TWh) a year from Windpark Krammer once it becomes fully operational in 2019. This is equivalent to the total annual consumption of 100,000 households.

The agreement is both crucial for the funding of the wind farm and for the renewable energy goals of all four companies. For Google, this agreement will allow our data center in Eemshaven to be powered with renewable energy from day one when it opens later this year.

Our participation in this consortium is part of our broader global strategy to procure renewable energy for our data centers, and build on similar agreements signed in other countries. Google now has six PPAs in the Nordics, seven in Europe, and 19 globally.

Additionally, we have purchased 148 megawatts (MW) of new renewable energy in Sweden, to supply our European data centers with renewable energy. This PPA will secure 70 percent of the production over ten years of this 41-turbine wind farm located in Lehtirova, northern Sweden. Each new wind farm is being built in one of the best areas for onshore wind in Europe. 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.

As the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world, we are thrilled to be joining forces with these leading companies in the Netherlands. By working together, we can realize a clean energy future–faster than ever.

Powering the Internet with renewable energy

Today we're announcing the largest, and most diverse, purchase of renewable energy ever made by a non-utility company. Google has already committed to purchase more renewable energy than any other company. Now, through a series of new wind and solar projects around the world, we’re one step closer to our commitment to triple our purchases of renewable energy by 2025 and our goal of powering 100% of our operations with clean energy.

842 MW of renewable energy around the world

Today’s agreements will add an additional 842 megawatts of renewable energy capacity to power our data centers. Across three countries, we’re nearly doubling the amount of renewable energy we’ve purchased to date. We’re now up to 2 gigawatts—the equivalent to taking nearly 1 million cars off the road.

These additional 842 megawatts represent a range of locations and technologies, from a wind farm in Sweden to a solar plant in Chile.

gigawatts.width-975.png

These long-term contracts range from 10-20 years and provide projects with the financial certainty and scale necessary to build these wind and solar facilities—thus bringing new renewable energy onto the grid in these regions. For our part, these contracts not only help minimize the environmental impact of our services—they also make good business sense by ensuring good prices.

Our commitment to a sustainable energy future

Since we opened our very first owned data center in 2006, we’ve been working to promote renewable and sustainable energy use in several ways:

  • First, we’re building the world’s most efficient computer infrastructure by designing our data centers to use as little energy as possible.
  • Second, we're driving the renewables industry forward by fully committing to renewable sources. In 2010, we entered our first large-scale renewable power purchase agreement with a wind farm in Iowa, and we subsequently completed a number of similar large-scale energy purchases over the past five years. Today’s announcement is another milestone in this area.
  • Third, we've worked with our utility partners to help promote transformation in the utility sector. In 2013 we created a new program that enables customers like Google to buy large amounts of renewable energy directly from their utilities. Today's announcement includes the first solar project enrolled under that program. And this past summer we announced that our newest data center will be on located on the site of a retiring coal plant and will be 100% renewable powered from day one.
  • Fourth, beyond our efforts to power our own operations with renewables, we’ve made separate agreements to fund $2.5 billion into 22 large-scale renewable energy projects over the last five years, from Germany to Kansas to Kenya. These investments have been in some of the largest and most transformative renewable energy projects in the world with a goal to help drive renewable energy development not only as a customer but as an investor, and bring down costs for everyone.

And we’re also working on new technologies and ideas—ranging from Project Sunroof to Makani Power to air quality monitoring—that we hope can make a cleaner energy future an option for many more people.

With world leaders coming together at the COP21 UN conference on climate change in Paris this week, there's no better time to focus on renewable energy. We hope that our efforts play a small part in boosting all of us in the race to solve climate change.