Just over a year earlier, Google announced its goal to run all of its clouds on renewable energy. In a recent statement, the company has announced that it has achieved its goal.
Interestingly, the company has generated more green energy than it needs to power its entire data centers and offices from renewable sources such as wind and solar power.
In the official blog post, Urs Hölzle, Google’s senior vice president of Technical Infrastructure, wrote, “Over the course of 2017, across the globe, for every kilowatt hour of electricity we consumed, we purchased a kilowatt hour of renewable energy from a wind or solar farm that was built specifically for Google. This makes us the first public Cloud, and company of our size, to have achieved this feat.”
Hölzle further explained that the company is taking responsibilities even further was it is entering into contracts to buy another three gigawatts of power from renewable sources. As of now, Google’s current contracts contributing more than $3 billion in new capital investments around the world.
However, at the moment, the company still has a long way to go until the company is completely run on renewable energy. Hölzle explained that although the company is currently adding a kilowatt hour of energy to the grid for every hour it spends, it may not be used to directly power its own data center or offices. He wrote, “What’s important to us is that we are adding new clean energy sources to the electrical system, and that we’re buying that renewable energy in the same amount as what we’re consuming, globally and on an annual basis.”
The company noted that it will continue to invest in new energy sources as demands for its products continues to grow. Moreover, the company will also stay on the lookout for new opportunities in different markets. Hölzle finished by writing, “This program has always been a first step for us, but it is an important milestone in our race to a carbon-free future. We do want to get to a point where renewables and other carbon-free energy sources actually power our operations every hour of every day. It will take a combination of technology, policy and new deal structures to get there, but we’re excited for the challenge. We can’t wait to get back to work.”