Google Now Purchases More Renewable Energy Than It Consumes As a Company (theverge.com) 95
In a blog post today, Google announced that it now purchases more renewable energy than it consumers as a company. "Google began these efforts in 2017, with the goal of purchasing as much renewable energy as it uses across its 13 data centers and all of its office complexes," reports The Verge. From the report: To be clear, Google is not powering all of its energy consumption with renewable energy. It's matching what it consumes with equal amounts of purchased renewable energy. For every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, it buys a kilowatt-hour from a wind or solar farm built specifically for Google. The company says that its total purchase of energy from sources like wind and solar now exceeds the amount of electricity used by its operations. Google says it currently has contracts to purchase three gigawatts of output from renewable energy projects, and while it says "it's not yet possible to 'power' a company of our scale by 100 percent renewable energy," these purchases do have a positive impact. Google says it's helping spur development of clean energy projects, encouraging other companies to follow suit.
wut (Score:2)
"now purchases more renewable energy than it consumers as a company."
They consumer us all, allright.
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If they are getting supplied only by renewable energy, per that same accounting game, they are taking renewable energy away from their neighbors.
Re:wut (Score:5, Informative)
Except that they were very careful not to make that claim...
"What do we mean by âoematchingâ renewable energy? Over the course of 2017, across the globe, for every kilowatt hour of electricity we consumed, we purchased a kilowatt hour of renewable energy from a wind or solar farm that was built specifically for Google."
Since they built the capacity specifically for this project you can't even claim that it is taking resources away from anyone else. They are just lowering the cost of renewable energy, nothing less.
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If they want to give money to renewable projects, they should just do that and claim that. Stop trying to be cute with the accounting
Re:wut (Score:5, Informative)
They're not giving money to renewable projects, they're buying from renewable projects, like any other customer. They're not taking energy from their neighbours, they're paying customers of renewable power plants (that were built just for them). They're not even claiming that all their energy use is renewable sources (because that's hard to prove and meaningless anyway) - they're simply claiming that now they're buying enough renewable energy to cover all their needs.
That level of investment helps build needed scale for the sector, and means that Google services are all carbon-neutral. Not sure what your beef is with that.
Re: wut (Score:2)
Using renewable energy does not negatively impact your carbon footprint unless you replace non-renewable energy. This would have no effect on Google's footprint.
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They're not throwing it away.
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Careful here, it actually does because, it shuts down non renewable energy on the grid they are attached to in pretty much a 1:1 ratio, so CO2 is never generated. And because CO2 is a global atmospheric pollutant, that's even true if the renewable energy is created on a grid your equipment isn't even attached to.
Re: wut (Score:4, Informative)
They're not giving money to renewable projects, they're buying from renewable projects, like any other customer.
Apparently not. Every other customer buys the energy they actually use. Google, here, is saying they buy MORE than they use. That's significantly different and leads to the obvious question "then where the fuck is the extra energy going".
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They resell it on the energy market, probably at a premium. This is similar to saying: Google is helping small business by investing in the stock market, technically true, but it doesn't mean they are adding any true value to any specific business.
You can't "buy" energy (as in the electrons) from a specific plant, it's the energy equivalent of a stock market - you buy futures for renewable electric and if you buy too much, you can sell it off at any particular point in time, eg. when there is a lot of deman
Re: wut (Score:2)
I believe in Google's case they will often actually buy capacity as part of funding new projects. So they'll buy 30MW say, of a 100MW project. This helps give certainty to projects, helps push some over into viability, and increases the pool of available renewable energy.
Google then does likely sell it, I believe they're a licenced utility in many jurisdictions. They may even see a profit on it, but it will be real ownership, as in part of the generation plant, not futures.
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More likely a cynical excercise in marketing, in every other way, they are a pack of corrupt propagandistic deceitful manipulators, oh but they buy a surplus of renewabale energy, it all begins to fell like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. Google screaming, love me, love me, whilst perversely trapping you in an abuse relationship. My response https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fuck... [duckduckgo.com]. It's not you Google it's me, I just feel the kind of relationship you want, is not one that I can provide, https://www.youtub [youtube.com]
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That excess energy isn't actually generated as I understand it, they just pay for it and the money goes towards further investment in renewable sources. Wind and solar are already price competitive, we just need more of them and some battery backup.
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No, the excess is generated, otherwise that would be fraud. It's used by other people, and the non renewable generators that would have supplied them reduce their output so that demand and supply are always in balance.
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They're not giving money to renewable projects, they're buying from renewable projects, like any other customer. They're not taking energy from their neighbours, they're paying customers of renewable power plants (that were built just for them). They're not even claiming that all their energy use is renewable sources (because that's hard to prove and meaningless anyway) - they're simply claiming that now they're buying enough renewable energy to cover all their needs.
That level of investment helps build needed scale for the sector, and means that Google services are all carbon-neutral. Not sure what your beef is with that.
My point was its all an accounting game. They are buying 'energy' that is from the same sources as everyone around them. They just pay more to claim they are buying 'renewable' energy.
My only beef is the stupidity of the claim for PR purposes when we know the only difference is what they are paying.
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They're not giving money to renewable projects, they're buying from renewable projects, like any other customer.
They're paying above market price for their "renewable" electricity, so yes they are subsidizing those projects.
What I find odd about this article is that they don't make any mention of hydroelectric power, which is where much of the electricity they actually use comes from (think base load). That's the best source of renewable power.
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Economies of scale are modest for renewable energy production, and even less so if you attribute transmission line and energy storage costs to them, so this won't make renewables cost competitive. Furthermore, the supply of renewable energy technology is scarce: if Google buys a lot of it (solar cells, etc.), they are simply driving up prices for everybody else. On top of that, many renewable energy plants are subsidized by tax payers. And a l
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[citations needed] for the "modest" scaling claim, the "scarce" supply claim, the "driving up prices" claim, and especially that ludicrous conclusion.
OTOH it's true that taxpayers contribute in part to renewable energy plants - just as they have been for decades with fossil fuels. Also true that most "free energy" fuelless renewable sources like solar, wind, hydro etc are front-loaded in cost and carbon (though "years to break even" is debatable, and also meaningless in comparison with fossil-fuel alternati
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Well, I suggest you go look for those citations yourself instead of making a fool of yourself.
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Yeah I didn't really expect a useful response when asking for actual evidence to back a claim. So here's a couple of quick citations that I found when looking myself (remember to check the sources).
This [wikimedia.org] is what an economy of scale looks like. It's not modest. And production has been increasing by 50% annually [wikipedia.org] so I have no idea why you think it's "scarce" either.
There were claims from "analysts" years ago that solar "couldn't possibly" get below $1.30/W because trillions would have to spent to scale it up en
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That's not "economies of scale", that's improved technology over time. That is, the technology in 1977 was completely different from the technology in 2015.
The very fact that production is increasing tells you that it's scarce.
And solar (both PV and non-PV) right now accounts for less than one percent of US electri
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That's not "economies of scale", that's improved technology over time.
Still not providing anything to back up your opinions I see. Certainly it's easy to find citations saying the opposite [wsj.com]:
A glut of low-cost solar panels—mainly manufactured in Asia—have pushed prices down in recent years.
Which directly contradicts your scarcity claims too (and not [wsj.com] just recently, either [wsj.com]). Yet demand and supply are both still dramatically increasing, with global installed PV increases up to 50% annually. It's hard to deny that scaled-up manufacturing like that contributes a lot to lower manufacturing costs.
As for the "analysts", judge for yourself [alliancebernstein.com]. I'm going with "misguided", since we're well [nrel.gov]
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There is no contradiction between your citations and what I said. The reason you think there is is that you don't understand what you're reading.
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If "scarcity" isn't contradicted by "glut" then you have a very different idea of what those words mean than I. If your idea of communication is making vague and unsourced claims then waving away contrary citations by insisting no really, they're not contrary at all, then perhaps you're just not very good at communicating. Adding insults for not immediately grasping whatever your intended meaning was makes it likely you don't even realise this.
Clearly you have your own highly-specific idea about something a
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I was pointing out a mistake in TFS :)
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They convert the excess into bulls**t like this press release.
So.. (Score:2)
If they purchase more energy than they consume then what are they doing with the extra energy?
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Their locations are powered by a mix of energy sources, not all clean. They are purchasing power in other markets that is then used my others. It is essentially a trade of energy.
Re:So.. (Score:4, Informative)
They used to pay for carbon offsets, but they don't need to anymore. What they're paying for now isn't "energy credits" but actual kilowatt hours generated from renewable sources.
It's irrelevant whether those specific electrons power a Google server or Joe Plumber's AC; the generation mix is the important part, and net effect on the grid supply and atmospheric CO2 levels is identical either way.
Is it? (Score:2)
Do they even have a reduction of conventional energy production in mind? Nothing is mentioned in that way.
Re:Is it? (Score:4, Informative)
It is sold to others, but not as renewable energy. Google buys the electricity it uses retail, but is also has a license in the US (and presumably other places) to buy and sell power wholesale. For every GWh they buy and use retail, they buy the same amount of renewable energy on the wholesale market, and sell it on again but without the renewable energy "certification".
There is more details here [environment.google].
The answer is the renewable energy certificates (RECs) issued by the renewables industry to record every unit of energy that’s produced by renewable means. Producers can use RECs to verify how much clean energy they produce, and consumers can buy that verification to match against their consumption. When Google buys renewable energy, in addition to the physical power we also buy its corresponding RECs. We then sell the renewable electricity back to the wholesale market but retain the RECs. We run our facilities with ordinary power purchased from local utilities and permanently “retire” the RECs against our actual energy consumption, thus reducing our carbon footprint.
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You either don't understand what the GP said, or you don't understand what shell games are. Which is it?
Re:So.. (Score:5, Funny)
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If they purchase more energy than they consume then what are they doing with the extra energy?
They are using the extra energy they purchase to fuel a public relations campaign that implies they are a conspicuously conscientious corporation.
Alphabet Power? (Score:2)
Might Google become a major utility company?
They've intervened in markets with Project Fi and Google Fiber. With economies of scale, why not become an energy retailer?
Re:Alphabet Power? (Score:4, Informative)
Google Energy LLC [wikipedia.org] was founded in 2009.
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Bravo (Score:3)
Good for them. It is refreshing to see a company helping out the rock we all live on. We may have our beefs regarding other business practices, but this is one we should all appreciate.
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Ironic that you would post that on an ad funded chat site that is mostly used by people to avoid productive work. Have you even looked at at the list of trackers that Slashdot employs lately?
Stop wasting precious energy complaining about other people wasting precious energy! What happens when the renewables run out, huh?
Well at least this instance they're not being evil (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't imagine them screwing this up, although knowing Google, like many projects they'll abandon it. So perhaps this policy will be abandoned for the sake of it in the next few years like everything else?
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Even if they stop, that capacity has been built and will continue providing cheap electricity for decades to come.
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I can't imagine them screwing this up, although knowing Google, like many projects they'll abandon it. So perhaps this policy will be abandoned for the sake of it in the next few years like everything else?
Google has been working on this project for a decade, so it seems like something with long-term commitment.
What? (Score:2)
It uses less power than it consumes? This makes no sense. It doesn't power everything with renewable energy but buys more renewable energy than it uses. It buys renewable energy but doesn't use it all? What the hell happens to the energy it buys but doesn't use?
Energy purchased from some place at some time (Score:1, Insightful)
This is a an accounting game. If google actually used 100% renewable electricity, they would say it plainly rather than make specious claims about paper purchases. In reality, they need reliable power around the clock, even when the sun isn't visible and the wind isn't just right. The electricity they use comes from the grid, from the same dirty mix of sources, and includes a token amount a wind and solar. Or in more sensible places, a substantial amount of clean nuclear.
They even admit: "it's not yet possi
Doesn't mean squat unless... (Score:2)
The way to change the makeup of energy which is consumed is to build renewable capacity. If
Purchasing indulgences (Score:2)
So they're spending money on "clean" power they don't actually use (and apparently nobody actually uses) to somehow atone for "dirty" power they actually do use (and apparently also pay for). Who says environmentalism isn't a religion?
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So they're spending money on "clean" power they don't actually use (and apparently nobody actually uses) to somehow atone for "dirty" power they actually do use (and apparently also pay for). Who says environmentalism isn't a religion?
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So they're spending money on "clean" power they don't actually use (and apparently nobody actually uses) to somehow atone for "dirty" power they actually do use (and apparently also pay for). Who says environmentalism isn't a religion?
There's nothing wrong with buying carbon offsets or paying for clean power to offset one's own carbon use. There would be a moral problem if for example someone kills someone but donates to Against Malaria as an offset with enough to save one life. That's because murder is fundamentally wrong. But carbon production is only wrong as a consequence of what it will result in. If everyone who could afford to paid for to groups like Cool Earth https://www.coolearth.org/ [coolearth.org], the Everybody Solar http://www.everybodyso [everybodysolar.org]
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There's nothing wrong with . . . paying for clean power to offset one's own carbon use.
There's "nothing wrong with" a lot of things, but what good comes from it? TFA describes the process as: "For every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, it buys a kilowatt-hour from a wind or solar farm built specifically for Google." It says nothing about anyone actually using the electricity from the wind/solar farms, and we already know Google isn't using it.
So that's not an "offset" of any sort -- it's actually worse than doing nothing (other than the positive PR Google gets out of it, of course).
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Re: Purchasing indulgences (Score:2)
So they're spending money on "clean" power they don't actually use (and apparently nobody actually uses) to somehow atone for "dirty" power they actually do use (and apparently also pay for). Who says environmentalism isn't a religion?
Heh, yeah, I wouldnt have thought of it that way myself ... but when you put it in those terms it sounds exactly like the old catholic practice of buying "indulgences".
If only bitcoin miners did the same (Score:1)
Math? (Score:1)
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If it purchases more than it uses, how does it store or waste the excess?
They sell it.
Good deal for the grid operators (Score:5, Interesting)
The way this works is that Google buys 120% of the power it needs from these renewable producers. It pays the grid operator to deliver 120% of its power requirement to its various data centers. It pays the grid to deliver the whole 120%. If Google only uses 100% of the power it is paying to have delivered, there is an additional 20% of power being fed into the grid. More likely, the renewable plants are delivering 200% or more of Google's instantaneous usage during the sunlight hours and that excess power get delivered to other consumers.
The grid doesn't care where power comes from after it is on the grid. It only knows how much power that is being put on the grid cost. If it gets a free 20% of Googles' power plus the transport fee from Google for that extra 20%,that is pure profit. At any given instance the grid looks at all power sources to determine where it can get the cheapest power to meet its anticipated demand. During the time the renewable plants are producing, the grid uses that power and tell the other sources to pound sand. The grid doesn't care if power is renewable or not. It only cares how much money it can make at any given instance. If it has more power sources than it needs, it can refuse power from peaker plants and they will reduce the amount of power that they produce. These plants are usually gas fired steam plants that can easily be dialed back, These peaker plants will probably become battery storage plants in the future when there are more renewable sources available than the total required peak load. In the end, the total amount of renewable energy gets consumed by somebody.
The grid operator loves it since they are essentially "buying" electricity for a negative price. When the sun goes down or the wind stops, the renewable plant stops putting energy on the grid and the grid has to start paying the carbon based peaker plants to make energy again. Maybe, at some point in the future, it will be able to draw down the battery storage before using the peaker plants. This works out great for the grid operators since their is much higher demand during the day than at night. The two big losers here are the non-renewable fuel suppliers since they aren't running the peaker plants as much and Google since they are overpaying for a specific amount of renewable power source to be generated and transported. The renewable producers are not likely to have many companies like Google to buy their power at a premium. Most companies will buy what is cheapest so the renewable operators will have to compete on price with the fossil producers.
The *real* source of global warming (Score:2)
Nah, that's not how it works.
Goggle just grounds out the extra power through massive resistors. *This* is what's causing global warming! :)
hawk
Peaks and dips of renewable energy (Score:2)
Renewables are generally not constant energy. They have huge peaks and dips. Take solar for example. It peaks at a certain point of the day and dips heavily as the day progresses. So when you see headlines like "140% renewable energy" they are not compensating for the dips but merely taking the peak as if it was a constant. That 40% is needed in non-peak hours. And it is often not enough to 100% coverage of a complete day of energy needs.
What?! (Score:2)
To be clear, Google is not powering all of its energy consumption with renewable energy. It's matching what it consumes with equal amounts of purchased renewable energy. For every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, it buys a kilowatt-hour from a wind or solar farm built specifically for Google.
What?! "To be clear" my ass. After reading this half a dozen times, I still don't understand what they mean. What's clear is that they are buying renewable energy, but not using it. Where does it go? How can you buy energy, but not use it? You can't just dump it, or recycle it.
Are they paying the power company, but not consuming any of it? But that's not "buying energy", that's just paying someone to do nothing. Can I get that money then? I promise to produce the required energy in a renewable way, by usin
how to spy (Score:1)