Google will power its global operations with 100 per cent renewable energy

Google’s global operations – including its data centres and offices – are set to run on 100 per cent renewable energy in 2017, the company announced on Tuesday.

“To reach this goal we’ll be directly buying enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity our operations consume, globally,” Urs Hölzle, Google’s senior vice president of technical infrastructure, wrote in a blog post.

Hölzle said that Google was the planet’s “largest corporate buyer of renewable power”, with its commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts of wind and solar energy. He went on to add that tackling climate change was a global priority.

The news was welcomed by environmental organisations.

“Google has been a catalyst in the dramatic growth in renewable energy procurement among corporations, redefining the art of the possible by bringing significant renewable energy projects onto the same grid its data centres are powered from,” Gary Cook, senior IT analyst at Greenpeace, said in a press statement.

“Google’s milestone of 2.6 GW of renewable energy purchased puts it well above what most corporations have done to drive renewable growth,” Cook added.