NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Sometime within the next 12 months, internet search and cloud services giant Google will be buying enough clean power on an ongoing basis to account for the electricity needs of both its 13 data centers (so far) and offices in more than 150 cities around the world.

This is not an insignificant load. Since Google declared its 100 percent commitment to renewables back in 2012, it has signed contracts that will help add almost 2.6 gigawatts of wind- and solar-generated electricity to the grid by the time all the projects are completely. While each of those installations has its own timetable for completion, at least 900 megawatts of those projects should come online within the next four to six weeks alone, according to one of Google’s energy strategy executives. In 2015, Google officially used 5.7 terawatt-hour of electricity — about the same amount of power used by the entire city of San Francisco.

The company’s agreements cover sites in five countries touching at least 20 projects, which are as close to the company’s actual operations as possible.