Google Has Invested $3.5 B In RE Projects, Will Invest More Worldwide

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Google is going to pursue new technologies that advance the clean energy mission and run 24/7. It will invest in onsite green energy, battery storage, and micro grids, according to We Mean Business Coalition.

Google has signed contracts to procure at least 3,000 megawatts across 26 projects and three continents investing $3.5 billion since 2007. In Europe alone, it has spent more than $1 billion, according to We Mean Business Coalition quoting Sundar Pichai, CEO, “Our carbon-free energy portfolio will produce more electricity than places like Washington D.C. or entire countries like Lithuania or Uruguay use each year,”.

Google follows a three-pronged strategy: energy efficiency, renewable energy procurement, and, when necessary, carbon offsets. Indeed, PPAs, or long-term contracts from renewable energy producers, are critical because the most complex challenge is to power its operations with clean energy as data collection is a quickly evolving business.

“The road to 24-7 clean energy may not be entirely clear to us today, but we’re ok with that,” says Mars Hanna, leader of global energy policies at Google. “At Google, we believe in setting our sights on a moon shot goal, even if we don’t know quite how to achieve it yet. We’re committed to working towards 24-7 clean energy for our global electricity supply portfolio and to help drive the transition of\the entire electric grid to a clean energy future.”

In 2020, Google again matched 100% of its global electricity use with purchases of renewable energy — a goal it first hit in 2017. Google claimed in a blog to have signed agreements to buy power from more than 50 renewable energy projects, with a combined capacity of 5.5 gigawatts – about the same as a million solar rooftops.

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It has also built or bought into renewable energy projects worldwide: Google’s first offshore wind project in the North Sea started delivering power to its Belgium data centre. It began purchasing electricity from a solar farm in Chile. It has signed a power purchase agreement with a new solar farm in the Antofagasta region. The goal is to match its growing load in South America. It deployed solar panels across hundreds of public housing rooftops in Singapore to deliver power, and It rolled out large-scale solar and wind projects to boost Oklahoma, Alabama, and Virginia data centres.

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