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TUESDAY 12 JANUARY, 2010 |

Google Energy - More Green Juice For The Giant Of Search

by Energy Matters

Running a company the size of Google takes a lot of energy. So what's the best way to secure electricity at a cheaper price? Get into the energy business.

The world's most popular search engine formed a subsidiary company in December last year called Google Energy and has filed to buy and sell electricity on the wholesale market.

Rather going head-to-head with other electricity retailers and offering "Google Electricity" to end consumers or acquiring cheap electricity for its own operations through any generation source possible, the move is about Google securing more clean energy supplies and living up to its motto of "Don't be evil"

No-one but Google knows exactly how many data centers it has, but estimates in 2007 put it at 40 - 60, housing 500,000+ servers around the world.

A guesstimate also in 2007 suggested that Google's carbon footprint at that time was heading toward 3 million tonnes of CO2 emitted annually by itself and its energy suppliers in delivering electricity to it.

"Right now, we can't buy affordable, utility-scale, renewable energy in our markets," said Google representative Niki Fenwick as reported on CNET. "We want to buy the highest quality, most affordable renewable energy wherever we can and use the green credits."

The move is by no means Google's first foray into greening the search giant. The company is already operating what it believes to be the world's most efficient data centers. In Mountain View, CA, Google has a a 1.6 megawatt (MW) solar power system that generates 30% of the peak power necessary to supply the buildings on which they are located.

Google.org also recently launched RE<C, an initiative aimed at creating utility-scale renewable electricity that is cheaper than coal. The company has a goal of producing one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity - enough to power a city the size of San Francisco - within just a few years.