Google Hits Impressive 100% Renewable Energy Goal
By Amanda Froelich Truth Theory
Conscious shoppers who rely on search engines to explore the world can feel good about their browsing habits, particularly when they use Google. This is because the company officially bought enough renewable energy to match all of the electricity that was consumed last year.
In a new blog for Google, Senior Vice President, Technical Infrastructure Urs Hölzle announced that the company reached its goal of matching all of the electricity it consumed in 2017 with clean energy. The company’s purchases even exceeded the total electricity used by their offices and data centers.
What exactly does “match” mean? Over the course of 2017, for every kilowatt hour of electricity consumed by Google, the company purchased a kilowatt hour of renewable energy from a wind or solar farm that was constructed specifically for Google. “This makes us the first public Cloud, and company of our size, to have achieved this feat,” said Hölzle.
Hölzle boasted that Google buys more clean energy than any other corporate purchaser. A chart showing the company’s cumulative renewable energy purchases in America, Mexico, and Europe in March 2018 was included for reference. It shows that Google’s purchases of clean energy surpass other big technology companies, such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple.
This isn’t the first time Google has proven its commitment to the environment — and it won’t be the last. Not only has the company invested in an 80-megawatt solar plant in Chile, it plans to purchase three gigawatts of output via 26 renewable energy projects. The majority are wind projects that will be spread across Europe and America. As Inhabitat reports, the company has invested over $3 billion in new capital investment.
Said Hölzle: “We’re building new data centers and offices, and as demand for Google products grows, so does our electricity load. We need to be constantly adding renewables to our portfolio to keep up. So we’ll keep signing contracts to buy more renewable energy. And in those regions where we can’t yet buy renewables, we’ll keep working on ways to help open the market.”
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Written by: Amanda Froelich
I'm an RHN, chef, writer, activist, and entrepreneur who lives in Colorado. I share healthy plant-based recipes at Life in Bloom and cannabis-infused recipes at My Stoned Kitchen. Read More stories by Amanda Froelich Follow on Twitter
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