Google’s chief executive told Reuters that the tech giant aims to power its data centers and offices solely with renewable energy by 2030, becoming the biggest company in the world to commit to ditching coal and natural gas power.
According to CEO Sundar Pichai, the “stretch goal” will force Google to move beyond the tech industry norm of offsetting carbon emissions from electricity use and require technological and political breakthroughs to achieve.
Currently, wind, solar, and other renewable sources accounted for 61% of Google’s global hourly electricity usage last year. The proportion varied by the facility, with carbon-free sources fulfilling 96% of hourly power needs at Google’s wind-swept Oklahoma data center compared with 3% at its gas-reliant Singapore operation.
As the tech consumes slightly more power annually worldwide than residents and businesses in Delaware, Google, has grown optimistic that it can bridge the gap with batteries to store solar power overnight.
Companies share a common goal of catalyzing businesses and governments to curb climate pollution before 2030 when scientists say global warming could become catastrophic if unchecked. Big Google rivals, which include Microsoft and Amazon have publicly set a goal to stop sourcing carbon-based energy, but only set a target of removing carbon from the atmosphere than they emit over the coming decades. Google has been carbon-neutral since 2007, meaning it has planted trees, bought carbon credits, and funded large amounts of wind power in places where it is abundant to offset its tapping of coal and natural gas power in other regions.
Google said it would continue to offset carbon emissions unrelated to electricity use, such as from employee travel.
Jennifer Layke, global director at research group World Resources Institute, which has received Google funding, said the company inspired others not only in United States but in Europe also over the last decade but its efforts must now spur action in crucial polluting regions such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
The company’s new goals include bringing five gigawatts of renewable energy near some suppliers, funding tree planting beyond its offset needs and sharing data, or forging partnerships with 500 governments around the world to try to cut 1 gigaton of carbon emissions annually by 2030.
Google’s carbon-free electricity goal satisfies one demand of 2,000 Google employees who last November petitioned the company to stop selling data storage and other cloud computing tools to oil companies.
Pichai said the company would continue to “support everyone” with its cloud services and help oil and gas companies transition to tapping other sources.
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