Google has achieved the 100% renewable energy target it committed to more than a year ago.
The internet giant’s senior vice-president of technical infrastructure Urs Holzle said that over the course of 2017, for every kilowatt hour of electricity consumed, the company purchased a kilowatt hour of renewable energy from a wind or solar farm built specifically for Google.
“We just completed the accounting for Google’s 2017 energy use and we met our goal,” said Holzle.
“Google’s total purchase of energy from sources like wind and solar exceeded the amount of electricity used by our operations around the world, including offices and data centres.
“This makes us the first public cloud, and company of our size, to have achieved this feat. Today, we have contracts to purchase 3GW of output from renewable energy projects,” he added.
Holzle said Google was continuing to build new facilities and as demand for Google products grows, so does its electricity load.
“We’re working with groups like the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance and Re-Source Platform to facilitate greater access to renewably sourced energy,” he said.
Image: Google data centre (Google)
Google hits clean energy target
By EBS