Google has hit its 100% renewable energy target, which the US tech giant set last year, purchasing more wind and solar energy than it used to power its operations globally over the course of 2017.

The company met its goal, it said, and was able to power its data centers and offices with clean energy by “matching its consumption”.

In 2015, only 44% of Google's energy needs came from renewables. That improved to 57% by 2016, before it covered all its needs in 2017.

“Over the course of 2017, across the globe, for every kilowatt hour of electricity we consumed, we purchased a kilowatt hour of renewable energy from a wind or solar farm that was built specifically for Google. This makes us the first public Cloud, and company of our size, to have achieved this,” said Urs Holzle, Google’s senior vice president of technical infrastructure in a blog post.

“Today, we have contracts to purchase 3GW of output from renewable energy projects; no corporate purchaser buys more renewable energy than we do.

“To date, our renewable energy contracts have led to over $3bn in new capital investment around the world,” said Holzle.

Google, however, is not yet able to power itself fully with renewable energy.

“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 centers and offices,” explained Holzle.

“What’s important to us 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.”

Looking ahead, Google said it will continue to look for new acquisitions that will boost its renewable energy portfolio.

“We’re building new data centers and offices, and as demand for Google products grows, so does our electricity load. We need to be constantly adding renewables to our portfolio to keep up. So we’ll keep signing contracts to buy more renewable energy,” said Holzle.

Google and its parent company Alphabet have emerged as regular backers of the global clean energy push, either as consumers of renewable power or investors in generation and research projects.

Last year, 26 wind and solar projects, totaling 3GW annual output, powered Google’s 15 data centers and offices across the world.

Other corporate giants have followed suit, including Microsoft, which only last month wrapped up a 315MW corporate solar PPA in the US.

The IT company will take the power from the Pleinmont I and II projects, part of a wider 500MW development planned by sPower, as it works towards a goal of a 60% renewable power share at its data centres by 2020.

In addition, Facebook signed earlier this year an expanded deal to take the full output of Enel’s 320MW Rattlesnake Creek wind farm in Nebraska.

Transition

Google hits its 100% renewables target, eyes more acquisitions