Clean, renewable energy will be powering several Google data centers by the end of the month.

Thomas Claburn, Editor at Large, Enterprise Mobility

July 20, 2010

2 Min Read

Continuing its efforts to implement socially responsible technology, Google on Tuesday said that its Google Energy subsidiary had completed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with NextEra Energy Resources to buy clean power.

Starting on July 30, Google will begin buying up to 114 megawatts of wind power from the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa at an agreed-upon rate for two decades.

Urs Hoelzle, SVP of operations at Google, says that the energy will be enough to supply several data centers and that the size of the purchase will support further investment in clean energy production.

"By contracting to purchase so much energy for so long, we're giving the developer of the wind farm financial certainty to build additional clean energy projects," he said in a blog post. "The inability of renewable energy developers to obtain financing has been a significant inhibitor to the expansion of renewable energy."

Mike O'Sullivan, SVP of development for NextEra Energy Resources, attributes his company's recent growth to demand for emission-free energy from environmentally responsible companies. "With the support of customers like Google Energy, we've built our wind fleet from fewer than 500 megawatts a decade ago to more than 7,600 megawatts -- the largest fleet in North America today," he said in a statement.

Google in June, 2007 made a commitment to become carbon neutral by the end of that year. It has also participated in a variety of other efficient computing and renewable energy initiatives, like the installation of solar panels at its corporate headquarters.

Last year, Google was ranked #3 in the Boston College-Reputation Institute 2009 Corporate Social Responsibility Index (CSRI), a list of the 50 U.S. companies out of 200 deemed to be the strongest in the areas of ethics, citizenship and workplace practices.

Walt Disney Company and Microsoft were ranked #1 and #2 respectively.

About the Author(s)

Thomas Claburn

Editor at Large, Enterprise Mobility

Thomas Claburn has been writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications such as New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and television, having earned a not particularly useful master's degree in film production. He wrote the original treatment for 3DO's Killing Time, a short story that appeared in On Spec, and the screenplay for an independent film called The Hanged Man, which he would later direct. He's the author of a science fiction novel, Reflecting Fires, and a sadly neglected blog, Lot 49. His iPhone game, Blocfall, is available through the iTunes App Store. His wife is a talented jazz singer; he does not sing, which is for the best.

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