Google Out to Hasten Clean Energy Revolution

Google’s surging data centers, with their soaring demand for electricity, have prompted the information giant to proactively engage in the accelerating energy revolution.

From Nevada to North Carolina and many points between, it is gearing up to power the Artificial Intelligence wave by striking novel relationships with utilities and encouraging the transformation of energy regulation, state by state.

That is the thrust of a wide-ranging interview that Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s Head of Global Data Center Energy granted the U.S. Department of Energy Grid Talk podcast, energy.gov/gridtalk.

Google, siting industry sources, says that $2.5 trillion must be spent on clean energy the balance of this decade to address climate change.

“What we have encountered is a universal recognition that we are in a unique moment in time,” she said. “For the first time in decades, we have real load growth in the U.S... The confluence of factors has really brought everyone to the table.”

Google’s response is to deepen its use of clean energy.

“We are matching 100% of the electricity we use on an annual basis with new additional clean energy that we put onto the grid somewhere in the system or in the world,” she said.

That effort will now be broadened.

“Our higher standard of our 24/7 carbon-free energy goal actually takes that a step further and says if we’re truly going to decarbonize the grid where we operate we need to make it first local, meaning we can’t just only sign a new contract for wind or solar, for example, in the Midwest to offset our data center in Singapore, right?” she said.

“Carbon is a global problem but we also need to find solutions directly where we operate,” Corio said.

“We hope to truly decarbonize our system and so our 24/7 goal looks at how can we bring it locally in the same balancing authority in the grid where we operate, and then how do we match on an hourly basis,” she said.

“... we want to recreate the lane by which we can work with our vertically integrated utilities to figure out what solution is in each specific market...” she said.

Google has pioneered a “Clean Transition Tariff” in Nevada and plans to develop similar regulatory models in North Carolina and other states.

“...this new rate structure between our utilities and ourself can allow, can open up to allow us to bring and make available clean capacity on the grid.”