Google hits 100 percent renewable energy target

Google has met the goal of matching all of its global energy usages with purchases of renewable energy. In fact, it now purchases more clean energy than it uses. The facilities of the technology company have yet to run on 100% renewable energy, however, Google has met the goal by financing wind and solar farms as an offset to its non-renewable usage. For every kilowatt-hour of electricity used by Google, it purchases a kilowatt-hour of clean energy.

Back in 2017, Google started to increase its spending on renewable energy and intended to go 100 percent renewable to match the energy usage across 13 of its data centers and office complexes. The time period required to kickstart these projects required a year or two, however, Google exponentially accelerated its efforts to switch to renewable energy throughout 2017. By the end of first of the first year, Google was already covering 57 percent of its energy usage with clean energy resources.

Google has acknowledged that a company of their scale cannot solely operate on renewable energy. However, the purchases of renewable energy will help the further the development of clean energy projects, encouraging other companies to follow suit. Recently, Google has purchased approximately three gigawatts of output from renewable energy sources at a cost of $3 billion. This purchase makes Google the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy.

Other technology giants are also adopting clean energy to combat climate change. These include Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. While Amazon and Microsoft have yet to catch up with Google, Apple Park is already powered 100 percent by clean energy. IT companies are the largest power consumers because of their energy-intensive data centers and office complexes, therefore, responsible consumption is necessary to encourage clean energy consumption in the technology sector.