Data giant makes third major low carbon purchase in January in quest to run all data centres on 100% renewables
(Pic: Dirk Goldhahn/Flickr)
Google has sealed its third green energy investment deal this month.
The internet giant has agreed a 10-year deal to source energy from four Swedish wind farms comprised of 29 turbines.
“We’re always looking for ways to increase the amount of renewable energy we use,” Francois Sterin, Google’s director of global infrastructure told the Financial Times.
“Long-term power purchase agreements enable wind farm developers to add new generation capacity to the grid, which is good for the environment, but they also make great financial sense for companies like Google.”
The company has invested over $1 billion in renewables in the past few years, and ultimately plans to source all its energy for data centres from green sources.
The energy from these farms is expected to power Google’s Hamina data centre in Finland, which is undergoing a €450 million expansion.
January has been a busy month for the company, which announced the purchase of smart grid experts Nest for $3.2 billion and a $75m acquisition of a Texas wind farm.
Google’s ‘Green Blog‘ reveals that an active user of its search engine, emails or You Tube causes carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to driving a car one mile.
In 2012 it says it emitted 1.5 million metric tons of CO2, before buying ‘offsets’ to reduce its carbon footprint to zero.