Google and Microsoft, two tech giants, have invested in several renewable energy deals to power their data centers.
According to The Register, Google has signed a 12-year contract to purchase 100 megawatts of utility electricity with the Moray West Offshore Wind Farm Development Company, located in the relatively remote Moray Firth region of Scotland.
The joint venture, owned by EDP Renewables and French company Engie, will provide the search engine giant with 5 terawatt hours of green energy from an 882 MW offshore wind farm from 2025, which will be used to power the Google Cloud UK region. will take.
Microsoft has also signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) in Ireland covering over 900MW of renewable electricity. However, some sources have indicated that Microsoft has also signed a deal with Norway’s Statkraft and Ireland’s Energia Group, which will give the tech giant more than 366 megawatts of clean energy.
The goals of Google and Microsoft in the field of renewable energy
Both companies have high-level sustainability goals that need to be met. The massive data centers these two companies dominate, along with Amazon Web Services (AWS), have a huge environmental footprint.
According to independent research by the International Energy Agency, data centers consume about 1% of the world’s total electricity consumption. By 2025, Microsoft plans to switch to a 100 percent renewable energy supply, and by 2030, it plans to match 100 percent of its electricity consumption with carbon-free energy purchases.
Matt Brittain, head of Google EMEA, said: “Our company is aiming to be fully carbon-free by 2030, and in the UK we will be 90% carbon-free or close to that in 2025. »
