Google on Sept. 20 unveiled a renewable-energy investment plan at an unprecedented scale which involves 18 transactions in PV power and wind power worldwide. The total capacity of the project is estimated at around 1.6 GW (1,600 MW).
As a result of the investment, the total green-energy purchase of the company is expected to reach 5,475 MW this year, which is up 40% from the previous year, according to a post by the company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai. The plan is in line with Google’s strong advocacy of green energy in the recent years, which has allowed the share of its renewable energy consumption to hit 100% in February 2018.
Google points out that the expected green energy purchase volume of 5,475 MW in 2019 is equivalent to the total output of 1 million rooftop PV power systems. This is more than the entire power consumption of Washington D.C., Lithuania, or Uruguay. Of the amount, 720 MW of PV power will come from the U.S., including 155 MW from South Carolina, 75 MW from North Carolina, and 490 MW from Texas. An estimated 125 MW of PV power and wind power will come from Chile for Google’s database in the country, while 793 MW will come from Finland, Sweden, Belgium, and Denmark.
The massive transaction in renewable energy will induce the installation of several millions of PV cells and hundreds of wind turbines at a total cost of around US$2 billion.
To facilitate the implementation of the investment plan, the charitable arm of Google, Google.org, will provide US$500,000 of subsidies to the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA) of the U.S. and 500,000 euros to RE-Source, a renewable-energy purchase platform in Europe.
Before the publication of the purchase plan, Google had already put forth a plan for the purchase of 10 MW of PV power in Tainan of Taiwan, which is the first renewable-energy purchase in Asia, in early 2019. This was followed by its plan to install 400 MW of PV power facilities in Alabama and Tennessee of the U.S.
The continuous drop in the cost of renewable energy is prompting more and more companies to embrace green power, such as Amazon which has recently pledged to attain the goal of 100% green power in power consumption by 2030.