google-renewable energy promotion.......an inspiration

Renewable energy

At Google, we're striving to power our company with 100% renewable energy. In addition to the environmental benefits, we see renewable energy as a business opportunity and continue to invest in accelerating its development. We believe that by powering the web with renewable energy, we're creating a better future for everyone.

Using green power at Google

We're currently using renewable energy to power over 30% of our operations, and we continue to look for ways to increase our use of clean energy. This includes trying new, innovative technology at our offices and buying green power near our data centers.

We pilot new technology on our campuses

When testing new renewable energy technologies on our campuses, we evaluate them against two criteria: They must make good business sense and have long-term potential to transform the industry. For example, in 2007, we installed the largest corporate solar panel installation of its kind—1.7 MW—at our Mountain View campus. It generates enough electricity to power 30% of the buildings on which it sits. And unless it rains for two years straight, it’ll pay for itself by 2013.

We purchase green power near our data centers

Currently, very little of the world’s power is from renewables like wind and solar. We're working on changing that by buying renewable energy from our utility providers and wind farms near our data centers. We get clean energy at competitive prices, the wind farm owners get the money they need to finance new clean energy facilities, and together we make the grid a little bit greener.

Investing in a clean energy future

We're investing in clean energy so it's more accessible for our company and for everyone. And we've done that in ways that makes business sense. In fact, we've committed over $1 billion to renewable energy projects. We're helping create a clean energy future that's better for our business and the environment.

We've invested in the following projects:

• Spinning Spur Wind Farm: investing in West Texas wind
• Rippey Wind Farm: financing wind power in Iowa
• Recurrent Energy: large scale photovoltaic (PV) projects in California
• Clean Power Finance: financing for rooftop solar
• SolarCity: solar for thousands of residential rooftops
• BrightSource: concentrated solar power at scale
• Atlantic Wind Connection: a superhighway for clean energy transmission
• Alta Wind Energy Center: harnessing winds of the Mojave
• Shepherd’s Flat: one of the world’s largest wind farms
• Peace Garden Wind Farms: opening up more financing for wind
• Photovoltaics in Germany: investing in clean energy overseas

We've been recognized for our green efforts

Google has been recognized for our commitment to using and investing in renewable power, and for reducing our overall environmental impact. We're proud of these accomplishments and are excited to support collaboration across the industry. We co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative in 2007 and joined The Green Grid—two global groups dedicated to higher efficiency and sustainability standards.