Google will rely on solar panels and wind farms beginning next year. According to the tech giant, its data centers across the globe will be fully powered by renewable energy sources in 2017.
Reports suggest that Google relies its power from a power company that operates an energy grid, which is usually supplied by several sources like natural gas, coal and wind power, including hydroelectric dams. Last year, Google reportedly joined some major deals with renewable producers that guarantees the purchase of energy with wind turbines and solar cells. As such, wind companies can get bank financing to produce more turbines.
Google's usage brings no net consumption of the fossil fuels, and the pool of electricity receive a considerable bigger share of renewable, given that the power produced by the renewable is plugged into the utility grid. Since Google is the biggest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world, as stated by Joe Kava, Google's senior VP of technical infrastructure, it is beneficial for the business, the economy and for their shareholders.
Compared to carbon-based energy, the costs do not fluctuate, allowing Google to plan better. Moreover, the more renewable power it buys, the more affordable those sources get.
While it is difficult to verify if Google is, indeed, the biggest buyer of renewable energy, it should be noted that a lot of industries do not reveal data on the amount of energy they use. But without a doubt, Google's large computer complexes are one of the fastest-growing new consumers of electricity in the world, according to report.
Meanwhile, experts believe that the way supply and demand wildly fluctuate is among the major problems with renewable energy. Renewable energy production grinds to a halt if the sun goes down or the stop winds, and that a low demand would mean that the energy generated is wasted.
Based on reports, an ideal solution would be to store excess power when not needed when the production is low. However, most of the solutions are said to be either too difficult or too expensive to implement. Among these is the hydrogen storage that has been launched by the University of California, which has paved the way for other universities to do the same, Popular Mechanics reported. Watch Google invests in green energy
