New clean energy purchases bring our total wind and solar capacity to over 3 gigawatts—enough renewables to match 100% of the energy it takes to run our products in 2017. pic.twitter.com/8ykaWO9LU0
— Google (@Google) November 30, 2017
Late in 2016, Google announced their intention to power their data centers and offices using only renewable sources — primarily wind and solar.
Fast forward one year, according to Bloomberg News, and Google has struck deals to acquire an additional 536 megawatts of wind power from four plants located in South Dakota, Iowa and Oklahoma once these facilities become fully operational.
This new power acquisition brings Google's total renewable energy supply to 3,186 megawatts overall. Google is the world's largest corporate buyer of renewable power, and by a wide margin — nearly triple that of second largest buyer Amazon's 1,219 megawatts.
Its “electricity consumption is considerable, but for them to meet that already by buying renewable energy is a huge achievement,” Kyle Harrison, a New York-based analyst at BNEF told Bloomberg.
Google consumes about the same amount of energy as the city of San Francisco, California.
Costs for both green power sources have plunged sharply in recent years.
Brewing giant commits to 100-percent renewable electricity by 2025.
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