Google Purchases Renewable Energy from US, Chile and Sweden

After Gates unfurled a new investment fund for clean energy projects, Google has announced a largest ever purchase of renewable energy from three nations to power its massive data centers as it moves to meet a commitment to power 100 percent of its business from green energy sources by 2025.

Bloomberg reports that, Google is expanding its clean energy portfolio with deals for 781 megawatts of solar and wind power. Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, completed five deals to but the outputs from the power plants in the U.S., Chile and Sweden, and now has contracts for 2 gigawatts of renewable energy worldwide. The power-purchase agreement runs from 10 to 20 years.

"We're really trying to lead this transition to a cleaner energy economy," said Michael Terrell, Google's principal of energy and global infrastructure, said in an interview. "We wanted to send the message that corporate America is really committed to driving the transition to a clean-energy economy," Terrell said.

Google will buy 200 megawatts of power from Renewable Energy Systems America Inc Bluestem Wind Project, and 200 megawatts from Electricite de France SA's Great Western green project, both of which will be built in Oklahoma. The company will also buy 225 megawatts of US wind power from independent power producer Invenergy LLC.

In Chile, Google will use 80 megawatts of solar power from Acciona Energia SA's EL Romero farm, which will be built in the Atacama region. In Sweden, the company will buy 76 megawatts of wind power from Eolus Vind AB's Jenasen wind project, which will be built in Vasternorrland County.

According to Recode, Google servers are spread across 14 campus locations on four different continents. All Google searches and YouTube loops demands considerable energy footprint. The buy marks another step in Google's bid to green its entire procurement process.

Venture Beat says that other internet companies are also pursuing green energy following the footstep of Google. Apple has been investing in solar farms; Microsoft is buying wind energy, while last year Amazon committed to run its cloud based Amazon Web Services (AWS) entirely on renewable energy.

In July, Google committed to tripling its purchase of renewable energy by 2025 in order to power 100 percent of its business from green energy sources. At that time, it had contracts to buy 1.1 gigawatts of that power.