Google buys more green energy than it uses

The company said it “matched” its electricity use with renewables purchased globally

Google bought more electricity from solar and wind farms than was used by its operations last year.

The company said it “matched” its electricity use with renewables purchased globally.

Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Technical Infrastructure added: “For every kilowatt-hour of energy we consume, we add a matching kilowatt-hour of renewable energy to a power grid somewhere. But that renewable energy may be produced in a different place or at a different time, from where we’re running our data centres and offices.

“What’s important to use is that we are adding new clean energy sources to the electrical system and that we’re buying that renewable energy in the same amount as what we’re consuming, globally and on an annual basis.”

Google has contracts to buy 3GW of output from green projects and to date, its renewable contracts have led to more than $3 billion (£2bn) in new capital investment.

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