Google is shopping for one other 600 megawatts of solar energy to produce electrical energy to its information facilities.
The brand new deal covers photo voltaic and storage initiatives being developed in South Carolina by EnergyRe. The corporate says it has 16 gigawatts underneath improvement; most initiatives listed on its web site have deployed round 60 MW to 75 MW of photo voltaic, although some are bigger.
Google has been investing closely in renewables just lately. Final yr, it pledged to speculate $20 billion with Intersect Energy and TPG Rise Local weather to construct sufficient zero-carbon energy vegetation to offer electrical energy for a number of gigawatts price of knowledge facilities. And in January, the corporate signed a contract to purchase over 700 megawatts of photo voltaic initiatives in Oklahoma from Leeward Renewable Power.
Like many tech firms, Google has mentioned it should eradicate its carbon footprint from power by 2030. After years of regular funding in renewables, Google and its friends had been marching steadily towards that purpose.
However the progress of AI and the compute wanted to run it has sophisticated that math, forcing Google and others to step up their purchases. The corporate contracted 4 gigawatts of unpolluted energy in 2023, the final yr for which Google has made information obtainable.
Google isn’t alone: Microsoft has added lots of of megawatts of photo voltaic this yr alone, together with a 475 megawatt buy in March. Meta signed offers for 595 megawatts and 505 megawatts of photo voltaic in January and February, respectively.