Google is a step closer to meeting its target of running 100% of its operations with clean energy with the purchase of 842 megawatts of solar and wind projects.
The capac ity will be used to power the company’s data centres. “Across three countries, we’re nearly doubling the amount of renewable energy we’ve purchased to date,” Google said in a statement. “We’re now up to 2 gigawatts—the equivalent to taking nearly 1 million cars offs the road.”
Whilst no details of the sellers of the capacity or individual projects were revealed, Google said it came from “a range of locations and technologies, from a wind farm in Sweden to a solar plant in Chile.”
“These long-term contracts range from 10-20 years and provide projects with the financial certainty and scale necessary to build these wind and solar facilities—thus bringing new renewable energy onto the grid in these regions,” the company said. “For our part, these contracts not only help minimize the environmental impact of our services—they also make good business sense by ensuring good prices. Our commitment to a sustainable energy futurecSince we opened our very first owned data center in 2006, we’ve been working to promote renewable and sustainable energy use in several ways.”