The internet giant buys 236 MW of electricity production from two wind farms in Scandinavia. To date Google contracted renewable energies with a capacity of 2500 MW worldwide.
The projects in Norway and Sweden are being constructed by different project developers and allow Google, at least for accounting purposes, to supply its data centres in Europe with wind power, Marc Oman, EU Energy Lead, Google Global Infrastructure explains. The wind park in Norway will feature 50 turbines with 3.2 MW each. In July 2016 construction starts, while the commissioning of the wind park south of the city of Stavanger shall take place in the end of 2017. The Swedish project with 76 MW near to Mariestad comprises 22 wind turbines and will be put into operation early in 2018. Google will purchase guarantees of origin for the electricity produced in those wind parks at the Scandinavian Nord Pool market and is thus able to label it as eco-electricity in other European countries. With these measures and contracts Google procured electricity for 12 years.
In total Google secured electricity production from seven wind parks with an installed capacity of more than 500 MW in Europe. Oman concludes: “Google has been carbon-neutral since 2007 and we are committed to powering 100 percent of our operations with renewable energy sources”. Other companies follow Google’s example. Last year, almost 3500 MW of renewable capacity have been acquired by businesses in the US alone. With 18 power procurement contracts of more than 2500 MW Google is therefore quite in line with other companies, which buy electricity from renewable sources to improve their CO2 – footprint.
