Google’s global renewable energy drive has continued with a new deal to purchase renewable power from the largest solar farm in the Netherlands.
Dutch clean energy specialist Enenco announced that the tech giant has signed a 10 year power purchase agreement (PPA) to source all the power generated by the Sunport Delfzijl project, which covers 30 hectares and is expected to generate 27GWh of electricity a year.
The PPA, financial details for which were not disclosed, will help offset the energy used by Google’s Eemshaven data centre. It marks the fourth renewable energy investment Google has made in the Netherlands, and the second deal with Enenco following a 2014 agreement to source wind power from the neighbouring Delfzijl wind farm.
“Google is forward-thinking to use locally generated solar and wind energy to power its data centre,” said Bram Poeth, director of Eneco Commercial Clients. “Google leads the way in providing a good example for the commercial sector, where we see a strong growth of the demand for sustainable energy. We are proud that we are able to contribute to making this possible.”
Marc Oman, EU Energy Lead at Google, said the deal was part of a wider strategy to source renewable power for the company’s operations.
“We are proud that our data centre in the Eemshaven has been powered by renewable energy since day one thanks to our agreements with Dutch suppliers,” he said. “After the agreement with Eneco for the delivery of wind energy from WindPark Delfzijl and the agreements with the wind parks Krammer and Bouwdokken, we are pleased that we can now also make use of solar energy. Worldwide, we have already contracted the delivery of 2.7 GW of green electricity, which makes Google the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy.”
He added that the deal should help unlock further investment in Dutch renewables projects. “Contracts like this give companies like Eneco the economic certainty to invest in new renewable energy capacity,” he said.
The deal follows the launch last year of a consortium featuring Google, AkzoNobel, DSM and Philips which saw the four multinationals team up to jointly source power from Dutch renewable energy projects.
The news also comes in the same week as reports that Google is set to receive its first wind power from Norway and rival tech giant Apple confirmed plans for a new data centre in Denmark that will be powered using a 30MW onshore wind farm.
Separately, the RE100 initiative, which encourages firms to switch to sourcing 100 per cent renewable power, announced this week that it has welcomed its 100th member, bringing together multinationals that have together committed to sourcing renewable power equivalent to the entire electricity demand of Poland.
Source: businessgreen.com
