Google makes large purchase: 842 MW of renewable energy to power data centers

Google has just announced what it calls “the largest purchase of renewable energy ever made by a non-utility company” — a whopping 842 megawatts, bringing the grand total up to 2 gigawatts. That’s enough energy needed to take one million cars off the road, according to Google.

While the company has already revealed plans to purchase large amounts of energy, it is now close to fulfilling its commitment to tripling its renewable energy purchases by 2025 and running 100% on clean energy.

The additional 842 megawatts will span various locations and technologies, such as a wind farm in Sweden and a solar plant in Chile.

Over the past 10 years, Google has taken many green initiative steps which include the development of clean energy data centers for its operations.

In addition, the company entered into a large-scale renewable power purchase agreement with a wind farm in Iowa, created a  program that enables customers like Google to buy large amounts of renewable energy directly from their utilities, and has agreed to fund $2.5 billion worth of large-scale renewable energy projects worldwide.

Some other major companies that take part in the “go-green” initiative include Apple, GM, Coca Cola, and UPS.