Some love it for its crispy golden crust, others for the fluffiness of its crumbs, but the French all agree that the baguette is their favorite loaf. Indeed it’s so embe…
Europe is gearing up for a challenging winter - with rising prices and pressures on the European grid, driven by Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, further driving the need for secure, reliable, sustainable and affordable energy sources.
We know that energy security and affordability are top of mind for many across Europe right now. People are turning to Google to ask questions about conserving energy and managing their costs. In the UK, a year ago just one in ten searches on the topic of energy prices was a ‘why’, ‘how’ or ‘when’ question - now it’s one in four. In Germany, we’ve seen search interest trending for queries like ‘how to save natural gas’, ‘heating cost’ and how to save energy - while in Belgium, searches for ‘how to save on gas’ are up more than 5,000% since this time last year.
In times of uncertainty, people turn to Google for help and information. As people look for new ways to stay on top of their energy consumption and keep costs manageable, we’re launching a new feature in 29 countries and 22 languages across Europe to enable people to find relevant and actionable information to help them navigate this crisis and save energy.
Starting today, when people search for information on the energy landscape in Europe, they'll see dedicated features with helpful and reliable information. When you search for things like ‘Europe energy crisis’ and ‘energy price’, you'll see news articles, local information including financial assistance that may be available, and recommended actions from the International Energy Agency to help conserve energy.
Whether it’s turning down the heat or adjusting the settings of your boiler, you will be able to see, at a glance, information about saving energy in your home. These information panels will surface alongside other relevant results from the open web.
The launch of the energy crisis feature is a further addition to products and tools we have already launched in Europe to help people learn more about accessing energy affordably, reliably, and efficiently. For example, earlier this year we launched updates to Google Maps that help you find more fuel-efficient routes to reduce emissions and costs when you need to drive.
Technology can contribute to addressing the challenges facing Europe today. We remain committed to connecting people with timely, relevant, and actionable information when they need it most.
The following is adapted from remarks delivered by Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs, at the “Google Cybersecurity Summit: Protecting Europe's Digital Space” in Madridon October 26, 2022.
Today’s cybersecurity discussion couldn’t be more timely.
Against a backdrop of rising geo-political tensions, we are seeing more and more efforts to undercut our shared security.
Cyber and information wars have become tools of the trade in attempts to exploit our vulnerabilities and destabilize our economies and our democracies.
It is no wonder that when the European Commission unveiled its plan for Europe’s digital transformation by 2030, it called security a fundamental right central to its vision.
So where do we begin the task of securing the digital world?
On the one hand, some would embrace data localization requirements, limits on market access, and even restrictions to accessing some cross-border services.
Essentially walled gardens and high fortresses. But we would suggest a different tack.
Though it sounds like a paradox, the best modern digital security actually comes through embracing openness.
Though it sounds like a paradox, the best modern digital security actually comes through embracing openness.
That’s because in today’s mobile, hybrid environment, cybersecurity is a team sport. We are each only as strong as our weakest link. But when we work together, we spur innovation and advance best practices that benefit all.
I speak from some experience here, as Google’s services are attacked every day. And yet we keep more people safe than anyone else in the world. We do that by looking at security through a collective lens, leveraging open frameworks, and relying heavily on secure open-source software.
We hope to use what we have learned to help secure Europe’s “digital decade.”
To that end, we recently published a white paper with recommendations like investing in technology that’s secure by default; working with private and international partners on new areas of cooperation, and building security based on openness and interoperability.
These recommendations are based on first-hand experience. In 2009, Google was the victim of a major cybersecurity attack, code named Operation Aurora. We learned that transparency, coupled with security by design, was the best way to secure the digital ecosystem.
As we detail in our recently released docuseries, HACKING GOOGLE, Aurora changed everything. It spurred us to shift away from the old “perimeter defense” model of crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle (with high outside walls but no interior defenses) to a zero-trust model in which all users, all devices, and all applications are continuously checked for security risks, and yet security comes easily and naturally for users.
After Aurora, we launched our Threat Analysis Group, or TAG, to spot, disclose, and attribute threats, whether they were coming from nation-state actors or commercial spyware and surveillance vendors. We also launched our Project Zero team to find and promptly disclose previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in our own and other companies’ software, raising the security bar for everyone.
It hasn’t always been comfortable work–but that kind of transparency is key to security. As the computer engineering saying goes, “with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow.”
Today, by adopting advanced security innovation and threat intelligence, we ensure vulnerabilities are fixed fast, before they can be widely exploited.
You can see our approach in action whenever TAG discloses a new threat. For example, in 2017, our Android operating system was the first mobile platform to warn users about NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware–“zero-click” malware designed to allow an attacker to compromise a smartphone without a user taking any action.
By sharing information early and widely, we raised awareness of this threat, helped victims understand if they were compromised, and promoted a greater focus on mitigations. Since then, TAG has continued to report on Pegasus and other commercial spyware tools, shining a light on this murky industry.
So when the war came in Ukraine, open security principles kept us one step ahead. Since the war began, we’ve sent thousands of warnings to users targeted by nation-state actors–another practice we pioneered after Aurora. We’ve succeeded in blocking the vast majority of the attacks. And we launched Project Shield, bringing not just journalists, but human rights organizations and even government websites in Ukraine under Google’s security umbrella against distributed denial of service attacks.
Because while it can be easy to DDOS small sites, it turns out that it’s pretty tough to DDOS Google.
We are all in on this collaborative approach to security. Currently, we are working with our team at VirusTotal to launch a new Google Safety Engineering Center in Málaga, Spain, which we hope will become a European hub for joint research on advanced threats.
In 2023, our newest Google Safety Engineering Center will be launching in Málaga.
Since we acquired VirusTotal in 2012, they have grown from a scrappy startup to become the world’s leading malware scanner and repository, what many call “the Google of cybersecurity tools.” VirusTotal enables people to search for malware against the millions of new samples submitted daily.
On top of that, when Google combined our existing security solutions with Mandiant’s cyber threat intelligence, we laid the groundwork to help public and private sector organizations in Europe anticipate, warn about, and mitigate threats.
What are the larger lessons for all of us as we work toward open security?
First, partnerships and agreements among democratic and rule-of-law societies are key. We need to set aside siloed approaches and embrace an ecosystem of innovation where security experts can share threats, evolve best practices, and adopt new technologies.
In support of that ecosystem, I’m pleased to announce that in 2023, we will be hosting a new Google for Startups Growth Academy for EU Cybersecurity, a growth program to help cybersecurity startups across Europe grow into success stories.
Second, interoperability and aligned security standards between technologies and among countries makes compliance easier for businesses, innovators, and manufacturers of all sizes–which makes for more secure hardware and better software.
The third and final thing to keep in mind is that when we shift away from buggy legacy technology and perimeter defense models and toward modern infrastructure, we can accommodate today’s increasingly global, hybrid workforces, without sacrificing security.
Collective security requires not just walls, but bridges.
By adopting an approach built on open principles like security-by-default, zero-trust architecture, transparency, and principled partnerships, we can advance the frontiers of information security, letting all of us sleep better at night.
People turn to Google every day for information in important moments. Sometimes that’s to look for the best recipe for dinner, other times it’s to check the facts about a claim they heard from a friend.
No matter what you’re searching for, we aim to connect you with high-quality information, and help you understand and evaluate that information. That’s why we design our ranking systems to prioritize the most useful, highest-quality content and provide direct access to reliable information for important topics.
We’re also investing in new ways to give you more context about the information you find online and introducing more information literacy features, based on research and best practices from experts. This week marks UNESCO Global Media and Information Literacy Week, and we’re sharing some new announcements about this important work.
When you’re searching for information on Google, it can be helpful to have quick access to more context about the sources and topics you’re finding in Search – so you can make a more informed decision about the sites you may want to visit and what results will be most useful for you.
Starting today, we’re rolling out our About this result feature to people searching in Portuguese, French, Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish in Europe. Next to most results on Google, you’ll begin to see the option to tap the three dots to learn more about the result or feature and where the information is coming from.
You can:
We’ve also launched About this page in the Google app, so you can get helpful context about websites as you’re browsing the web. Just swipe up from the navigation bar on any page to get more information about the source – helping you explore with confidence, no matter where you are online.
There are a range of other Google tools that help people evaluate the credibility of information online. For instance, we make it easy to spot fact checks published by independent, authoritative sources on the web. We highlight relevant fact checks on results in Search, News and Google Images.
One of the most important pieces of context we can provide is letting you know when helpful or relevant information isn’t available on the web just yet. This could be true in a rapidly evolving event, where interest in a topic can often travel faster than the facts. Or when relevant information simply doesn’t exist for your search. In these moments, we alert you with a notice recommending that you check back later or try another search.
Information literacy is a key skill for people who are trying to navigate an increasingly complex information landscape. To help empower people to understand the tools and tactics that they can use to make sense of information online, Google is partnering with Public Libraries 2030 to launch the Super Searcher training program in Europe.
Under this partnership, librarians and library staff across Europe will be trained on best practices from information literacy experts, including how to use tools like About this result on Search to help evaluate information online. In turn, trained librarians and library staff will be able to help educate library patrons to strengthen their information literacy skills. This program will be offered in 12 countries in the coming months.
We know that Search is a powerful tool for getting high quality information, and we’ll keep investing in ways to empower people to critically evaluate the information they find.
Over the past 20 years, we’ve collaborated closely with journalists from around the world to support a sustainable, independent and diverse news industry.
Building on our partnership with French publishers, today we're announcing the launch of Google News Showcase in France, with more than 65 publishers representing more than 130 publications. These include national, regional and local news outlets like 20 minutes, La Dépêche, L’Equipe, L'Express, Le Figaro, La Provence, Le Monde, Groupe EBRA and Le Parisien.
News Showcase gives participating publishers in France more ways to engage with readers, and directs them to full articles on news publications’ websites. This enables publishers to deepen their relationships with readers – and gives them more direct control of presentation and branding. Our French news partners’ News Showcase panels will begin appearing on Google News on Android, iOS and the web, and in Discover on iOS and Android.
Some of the participating publishers for News Showcase in France
"News Showcase will offer additional visibility to news brands and will highlight the quality and richness of the content produced by Le Figaro's editorial teams," says Marc Feuillée, CEO of daily national newspaper Le Figaro.
"Google News Showcase is an opportunity for us, news publishers, to highlight the depth of our content, in an environment tailored for quality news,” says Jean-Nicolas Baylet, General Manager of regional daily newspaper GroupeDépêche du Midi. “It’s also a showcase of our subscriber-only content that we will leverage to get more digital subscribers."
An example of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in France.
"News Showcase allows us to highlight the quality information produced by our 400 journalists to attract a wider audience and engage them to subscribe to Le Parisien,” says Sophie Gourmelen, CEO of the daily newspaper.
Since its launch in October 2020, we’ve signed News Showcase deals with more than 1,800 news publications and have launched the product in 20 countries, including Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia, Ireland and Italy.
Another example of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in France.
As part of our licensing agreements with publishers for News Showcase, we're also paying participating news organizations to give readers access to a limited amount of their paywalled content. This feature means readers can see more articles than they would otherwise be able to, encouraging them to learn more about the publication — and potentially subscribe.
"At L'Express we believe in the essential role of the informed, rational and quality press in distinguishing quality journalism from fake news,” says Diane Lemoine, Deputy Managing Director ofL'Express Group, national weekly newspaper. She adds, “News Showcase is an additional and important channel to contribute to media education and to the dissemination of good information to the public. Moreover, I am convinced that the product will bring new visibility to our content, reaching a more diverse audience, helping to introduce L'Express to new readers and hopefully drive subscriptions."
“We are delighted to continue our collaboration with Google to bring the best sports information to readers; a partnership that takes into account the high value of the content of L'Equipe and which helps us ensure our audience gets the news they're looking for,” says Laurent Prud’homme, Managing Director of the Groupl’Equipe, a daily national newspaper devoted to sports.
The launch of News Showcase in France is the latest in our efforts to support publishers and journalists. For more than 20 years we’ve worked closely with the news industry, helping to accelerate their digital journey through traffic generation (Search, Google News, Discover), ads and subscription products, and by supporting news innovation and digital training through the Google News Initiative. Through News Showcase, our other News products and programs, we’re proud to promote quality journalism and support a thriving and diverse news industry.
Over the past 20 years, we’ve collaborated closely with journalists from around the world to support a sustainable, independent and diverse news industry.
Building on our partnership with French publishers, today we're announcing the launch of Google News Showcase in France, with more than 65 publishers representing more than 130 publications. These include national, regional and local news outlets like 20 minutes, La Dépêche, L’Equipe, L'Express, Le Figaro, La Provence, Le Monde, Groupe EBRA and Le Parisien.
News Showcase gives participating publishers in France more ways to engage with readers, and directs them to full articles on news publications’ websites. This enables publishers to deepen their relationships with readers – and gives them more direct control of presentation and branding. Our French news partners’ News Showcase panels will begin appearing on Google News on Android, iOS and the web, and in Discover on iOS and Android.
Some of the participating publishers for News Showcase in France
"News Showcase will offer additional visibility to news brands and will highlight the quality and richness of the content produced by Le Figaro's editorial teams," says Marc Feuillée, CEO of daily national newspaper Le Figaro.
"Google News Showcase is an opportunity for us, news publishers, to highlight the depth of our content, in an environment tailored for quality news,” says Jean-Nicolas Baylet, General Manager of regional daily newspaper GroupeDépêche du Midi. “It’s also a showcase of our subscriber-only content that we will leverage to get more digital subscribers."
An example of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in France.
"News Showcase allows us to highlight the quality information produced by our 400 journalists to attract a wider audience and engage them to subscribe to Le Parisien,” says Sophie Gourmelen, CEO of the daily newspaper.
Since its launch in October 2020, we’ve signed News Showcase deals with more than 1,800 news publications and have launched the product in 20 countries, including Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia, Ireland and Italy.
Another example of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in France.
As part of our licensing agreements with publishers for News Showcase, we're also paying participating news organizations to give readers access to a limited amount of their paywalled content. This feature means readers can see more articles than they would otherwise be able to, encouraging them to learn more about the publication — and potentially subscribe.
"At L'Express we believe in the essential role of the informed, rational and quality press in distinguishing quality journalism from fake news,” says Diane Lemoine, Deputy Managing Director ofL'Express Group, national weekly newspaper. She adds, “News Showcase is an additional and important channel to contribute to media education and to the dissemination of good information to the public. Moreover, I am convinced that the product will bring new visibility to our content, reaching a more diverse audience, helping to introduce L'Express to new readers and hopefully drive subscriptions."
“We are delighted to continue our collaboration with Google to bring the best sports information to readers; a partnership that takes into account the high value of the content of L'Equipe and which helps us ensure our audience gets the news they're looking for,” says Laurent Prud’homme, Managing Director of the Groupl’Equipe, a daily national newspaper devoted to sports.
The launch of News Showcase in France is the latest in our efforts to support publishers and journalists. For more than 20 years we’ve worked closely with the news industry, helping to accelerate their digital journey through traffic generation (Search, Google News, Discover), ads and subscription products, and by supporting news innovation and digital training through the Google News Initiative. Through News Showcase, our other News products and programs, we’re proud to promote quality journalism and support a thriving and diverse news industry.
Mental health illnesses impact more than 84 million people across the European Union, with Ireland being one of the most affected countries. Across Ireland, but particularly in rural communities, access to support services can change everything. Turn2Me is an Irish nonprofit on a mission to offer safe and timely mental health services online and break the stigma. Google.org sat down with Fiona O’Malley, CEO, to learn more.
Oisin and Diarmuid Scollard funded Turn2Me in 2009, six years after their brother Cormac committed suicide. The vision was to create a safe space for anyone in need to get professional help online. In 2013, Turn2Me gained the support of the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention to deliver counseling online. Over the years, we have assisted more than 110,000 people with one-to-one and group support services online and our website now has 45,000 active users.
Our online-first, year-round free assistance helps us reach people who might otherwise be excluded because of the cost of counseling services or their location. We also join forces with other nonprofits to make our services known in rural areas across Ireland – and among young generations, LGBTQIA+ groups, and more.
Fiona O’Malley, CEO, Turn2Me
We know that peer support, awareness and timely access to help and information play a crucial part in mental health. Turn2me is one of the first online mental health services in the world and a great example of how investments in technology can help people feel more connected and heard.
We have invested in a custom-built platform where our users can book one-to-one counseling and support groups, but also share their thoughts and experiences 24/7 in a moderated, safe community. The Thought Catcher is an online mood diary popular with younger generations – users can select their mood, share feelings anonymously, track mood changes and receive supportive, uplifting messages. Our trained staff moderates the community and points users to resources and services.
Last but not least, we also use Ad Grants to run ads on Google Search at no cost and reach a wider audience – our sign-ups are dependent on word of mouth and online reach, and about 60% of our new website users come through ads.
Again technology, which helps us run things smoothly and efficiently. We’ve been part of Google for Nonprofits for years, which has given us access to Google Workspace for Nonprofits, improving operations and collaboration. For example, we use Docs to update our policies and share minutes of Board meetings and Meet to regularly keep in touch with other mental health nonprofits and find synergies.
Not having to pay for Ad Grants or Google Workspace means that resources can be reinvested in our programs, which helps us support between 30 and 100 more people every year.
We’re also incredibly lucky to have many wonderful volunteers along with our Board, which includes Oisin and Diarmuid Scollard, our founders. Like many families in Ireland, they know first-hand the importance of adequate mental health services and are passionate about driving change.
I believe vision matters. Our belief in our cause combined with the immense support of the many people who help us are what help us thrive. With a bold vision, you can achieve so much.
When I was on holiday recently, I wanted to take notes from an ebook I was reading. But instead of taking audio notes or scribbling things down in a notebook, I used Lens to select a section of the book, copy it and paste it into a document. That got me curious: How did all that just happen on my phone? How does a camera recognize words in all their fonts and languages?
I decided to get to the root of the question and speak to Ana Manasovska, a Zurich-based software engineer who is one of the Googlers on the front line of converting an image into text.
I’m involved with the text aspect, so making sure that the app can discern text and copy it for a search or translate it — with no typing needed. For example, if you point your phone’s camera at a poster in a foreign language, the app can translate the text on it. And for people who are blind or have low vision, it can read the text out loud. It’s pretty impressive.
So part of what my team does is get Lens to recognize not just the text, but also the structure of the text. We humans automatically understand writing that is separated into sentences and paragraphs, or blocks and columns, and know what goes together. It’s very difficult for a machine to distinguish that, though.
Yes. In other words, it uses systems (we call them models) that we’ve trained to discern characters and structure in images. A traditional computing system would have only a limited ability to do this. But our machine learning model has been built to “teach itself” on enormous datasets and is learning to distinguish text structures the same way a human would.
Yes, it can recognize 30 scripts, including Cyrillic, Devanagari, Chinese and Arabic. It’s most accurate in Latin-alphabet languages at the moment, but even there, the many different types of fonts present challenges. Japanese and Chinese are tricky because they have lots of nuances in the characters. What seems like a small variation to the untrained eye can completely change the meaning.
There’s lots of complexity and ambiguity, which are challenging, so I’ve had to learn to navigate that. And it’s very fast paced; things are moving constantly and you have to ask a lot of questions and talk to a lot of people to get the answers you need.
Mostly I use a programming language called C++, which enables you to run processing steps needed to take you from an image to a representation of words and structure.
This is what C++ looks like.
The code above shows the processing for extracting only the German from a section of text. So say the image showed German, French and Italian — only the German would be extracted for translation. Does that make sense?
It boils down to my lifelong love of solving problems. But I also really like that I’m building something I can use in my everyday life. I’m based in Zurich but don’t speak German well, so I use Lens for translation into English daily.
It’s a challenging time for Europe. People, businesses, and governments across the continent are concerned about rising prices and increased pressure on the energy grid because of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The concern people are feeling is evident in the information they’re searching for. The search term “climate anxiety” reached an all-time high in July 2022, and top trending searches, such as “save natural gas,” “saving heating costs,” and “save energy,” show us that people want — and need — answers.
For more than 20 years, Google has been investing in making our operations and communities more sustainable. Building on the lessons and achievements from our first two decades of progress, in 2020 we launched our third decade of climate action — our most ambitious yet. We know that our responsibility begins with our own footprint, so our latest goal is to reach net zero across all our operations and value chain by 2030.
But no company, no matter how ambitious, can solve a challenge as big as climate change alone. One of the most powerful things we can do is build technology that allows us, our partners, and individuals around the world to take meaningful action.
It was with that sentiment in mind that we organized today’s inaugural Google Sustainability Summit in Brussels, as a space for partners working across the climate space to forge new partnerships and deepen collaboration, share ideas and inspiration and jointly move from climate pledges to progress.
Sustainability has always been a core value for us. As CEO of Google & Alphabet Sundar Pichai put it at today’s conference, “There is no time to waste. The crisis is impacting communities around the world, including those already facing deep challenges. At Google we share the EU’s commitment to action and want to be a helpful partner in that progress.”
For those who were unable to attend the conference, we thought we would share some of our key takeaways.
Research supported by Google and conducted by Implement Consulting has identified the sectors where digital technologies can make the biggest impact on facilitating energy and emissions savings. The results, released today, make us hopeful.
Digital solutions play an important enabling role for at least 20-25% of the reductions required to achieve a net-zero economy in Europe — equivalent to the total emissions of France and Germany combined.
The research also identifies four sectors that play a critical role in moving us from pledges to progress:
Building on an existing body of research, these insights suggest that emissions savings enabled by tech significantly outweigh tech’s own emissions. For example, just two applications — videoconferencing and artificial intelligence solutions for building management — are already saving emissions comparable to those associated with all European data centers, while using a fraction of the computing capacity. That said, there is still the potential and need to decarbonize, and we as a digital sector continue to work on this.
Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries said during the conference, “In the EU Green Deal, digital technologies and artificial intelligence play a major role. They help us measure the effectiveness of our legislation, monitor pollution and climate change, and model solutions. They are key enablers in the green transformation."
Another research study released today by the Technical University of Berlin, supported by Google, compares the impact of different clean electricity strategies in Europe. Traditionally, companies purchase renewable energy to match their annual electricity needs, known as “100% renewable energy matching.” This has limited benefits for decarbonization.
Compared to this, Google’s first-of-its-kind approach of hourly matching of carbon-free energy, known as 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE), reduces significantly more carbon emissions — not only for the companies concerned, but the entire electricity system. This also spurs technology innovation for decarbonization.
Our work has taught us that many of the sustainability solutions that the world needs already exist. They’ve been researched, tested and piloted. It’s the collaboration — between policymakers, climate experts, technology providers, business and individuals — that is needed to put them to use.
As Sebastian Copeland, award-winning photographer, adventurer and environmental advocate, told the conference, “We do not have the luxury of time. Technology is well on the way to offer a path to sustainability. But we need the public and private sectors, and public opinion for systemic and lasting change — and each can only move as fast as the slowest one.”
We know people are looking for answers. They expect us to be responsible partners. They expect us to come together to find solutions and act. Together, we can — and must — move from pledges to progress. The time is now.
In recent years, many companies have been reducing their carbon emissions footprint by purchasing clean electricity. Traditionally, companies purchase renewable energy to match their annual electricity needs, known as “100% renewable energy matching.”
But this 100% annual matching doesn’t mean complete decarbonization, due to the variability of renewable power supply. There are times when not much wind or solar is available and companies have to use fossil-fuel generated electricity. In German, of course, there’s a word for these periods of low wind and sun: Dunkelflauten.
This is a problem, as this graph shows.
Graph showing that surplus energy in some periods does not fill the gap between demand and supply in other periods
During this two-week period, a company matched its total demand (grey) with wind generation (blue). However, even though there’s a surplus of clean energy in the first week, during the second week, demand outstrips available wind power.
Unfortunately, batteries cannot completely fill the gap, as they can only shift surplus power supply by a couple of hours - not days or weeks. More innovation is necessary – and it’s beginning to happen.
A new approach, called 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE), first introduced by Google, has emerged to address this challenge. Google and some other companies already match their electricity consumption with renewable energy on an annual basis, but more work is needed to fully eliminate their emissions and operate on clean energy around the clock.
In a new research study, published today by my research group at the Technical University of Berlin, we look at the impact of different clean electricity strategies for select countries in Europe. We find that moving from annual matching to hourly CFE targets would reduce significantly more carbon emissions - across the entire electricity system. A new group of stakeholders has come together under the 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact to advance this approach.
According to our simulations for the year 2025, if a business buys energy from the grid in Ireland, its electricity is 61% carbon-free on an hourly basis. If it matches its consumption with 100% renewable energy on an annual basis it is 85% carbon-free on an hourly basis. This reduces emissions relative to the reference case of purchasing no renewables at all. But to reduce emissions further, or eliminate them, the business needs a higher hourly CFE target.
In Ireland, meeting an hourly CFE score above 85% reduces a consumer’s emissions more than matching renewable generation on an annual basis (100% RES).
Hourly CFE targets also benefit the electricity system as a whole. By pursuing hourly matching, companies can reduce overall electricity system emissions faster. If for example in Ireland, 25% of corporate and industry electricity demand achieved 100% 24/7 carbon-free energy in 2025, it would reduce Irish emissions by 0.6 million tons of carbon dioxide per year compared to annual matching, equivalent to 15% of Ireland’s power sector emissions.
But how can companies meet these targets, and what does it cost? Our analysis shows that getting to 90-95% CFE doesn’t cost significantly more than annual matching. But the final 5%, because of those long winter Dunkelflauten, triples the cost if it is achieved using only wind, solar, and battery storage.
Fortunately, there are other technologies at hand: long-duration storage, such as chemical storage in the form of hydrogen, can help to store electricity for days or weeks. Carbon capture and storage, advanced geothermal, or advanced nuclear technologies, can contribute. If these technologies are available, the cost of 100% CFE is reduced.
Pursuing 24/7 CFE will create early markets for less mature technologies that are needed in the medium-term. Just as solar PV costs plummeted thanks to early markets and improvements in manufacturing, 24/7 CFE could accelerate the development of long-duration energy storage and clean dispatchable power. The whole power system will need these technologies as it decarbonises, so early development will benefit everyone.
To read more, please see our study.