Google has signed a deal with Duke Energy Carolinas to buy electricity from the 61MW Rutherford Farms solar project in North Carolina.
The power sourced through Duke’s Green Source Rider program will meet a portion of the power demand from Google’s data center in Lenoir.
Under the program, Duke Energy and Google agreed on the specific project and additional costs associated with energy from the facility.
Duke senior vice president distributed energy resources Rob Caldwell said: “Google was a driver behind Duke Energy seeking approval for the Green Source Rider.
“Having Google as the first company to publicly announce its participation is extremely satisfying. We believe this will lead to similar announcements in the future.”
Google head of data center energy and location strategy Gary Demasi said: “We’ve agreed to purchase 1.2GW of renewable power globally and we’re working to power 100 percent of our operations with renewables.
“As we pursue that goal, this is a really big moment for us and we’re thrilled to have created this program with Duke Energy.
“Not only does it enable us to purchase renewable energy for our North Carolina operations, it will empower others in the state to do the same.”
Image: a Google data centre (Google)
