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Reducing our carbon footprint with the direct purchase of renewable energy
July 20, 2010
When we decided in 2007
to voluntarily become carbon neutral
, our intent was to take responsibility for our carbon emissions and promote sustainable environmental solutions. We approach this goal in three ways. First, we minimize our energy consumption; in fact, we’ve built some of the world’s most
energy efficient data centers
. Second, we seek to power our facilities with renewable energy, like we did in Mountain View, CA with
one of the largest corporate solar installations
. Finally, we
purchase carbon offsets
for the emissions we cannot directly eliminate.
We just completed a substantial 20-year green Power Purchase Agreement that allows us to take responsibility for our footprint and foster true growth in the renewable energy sector. On July 30 we will begin purchasing the clean energy from 114 megawatts of wind generation at the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa at a predetermined rate for 20 years. Incorporating such a large amount of wind power into our portfolio is tricky (read more about
how the deal is structured
), but this power is enough to supply several data centers.
The wind farm, which began operation in December 2009, consists of 100 GE 1.5MW XLE turbines.
By contracting to purchase so much energy for so long, we’re giving the developer of the wind farm financial certainty to build additional clean energy projects. The inability of renewable energy developers to obtain financing has been a significant inhibitor to the expansion of renewable energy. We’ve been excited about this deal because taking 114 megawatts of wind power off the market for so long means producers have the incentive and means to build more renewable energy capacity for other customers.
We depend upon large quantities of electricity to power Google services and want to make large actions to support renewable energy. As we continue operating with the most energy efficient data centers and
working to be carbon neutral
, we’re happy to also be directly purchasing energy from renewable resources.
Posted by Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Operations
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