Google, Microsoft Sign New Pacts to Employ Renewables in Data Centres

Repsol Signs RE Purchase Agreement with Microsoft

IT conglomerates Google and Microsoft are increasingly opting for ways to decarbonise their businesses and help timely transition to green and clean energy. In a fresh development, both the companies have announced the signing of new agreements that will help them lower carbon footprint of their IT operations by the employment of renewable energy in their data centres.

According to reports, Google has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with French utility company Engie for the supply of 100 MW of green energy produced in the Moray West offshore wind farm. The offshore facility is based in Scotland. The deal will help to power the UK operations of Google.

Google has said that the new agreements for green power employment will bring the company closer to the objective of running its offices in the United Kingdom and also the cloud regions entirely on green energy sources by the end of this decade.

Google has also informed that with the most recent power purchase agreement inked with Engie, the search engine and clouding company is striving to become completely carbon emissions free by the middle of this decade. The people of the UK and Europe are getting increasingly concerned about the climate change, said Matt Brittin, President of Google EMEA. On the other hand, Microsoft has also said that it has signed PPAs for the supply of over 900 MW of renewable energy for its data centres that are located in Ireland. Microsoft itself has not disclosed its renewable energy suppliers. According to reports, Statkraft and Ireland-based Energia Group will be providing both wind energy and solar energy to Microsoft.

The two IT firms have previously also signed agreements to decarbonise their operations and data centres.

SB Energy, a subsidiary of SoftBank, earlier signed an agreement with Google for the supply of about 900 MW of clean power from a solar power plant to the Texas data centre. Similarly, Microsoft had also entered into a 20-year deal with AES Corporation recently. Under this deal, AES Corporation will supply Microsoft data centres with renewable energy in California. The clean and green energy will be sourced from 110 MW solar power plant and 55 MW four-hour storage plant.