Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is working on transforming a Northern Alabama coal plant facility into a huge data center to power the online domain. The move comes on the heels of the Jackson County’s Widows Creek plant shut down. Also, most of the equipment in the coal plant will help the place to be used the company’s data center in a short time.
Google’s Director, Data Center Energy and Location, Gary Demasi said that the infrastructure that was already available at the site would offer some benefit to the company. As even they required energy consumption and the company will get access to clean energy generated from solar, wind and other renewable sources.
Clean Energy Resolution
There could not have been a better place for building an eco-friendly computing facility. According to the company, it aims to provide energy to all the 14 data centers through renewable energy sources and the replacement of the Northern Alabama plant into a data center was a beginning in that direction. The company is also going to initiate an agreement for buying a renewable energy powered plant with 842 megawatts capacity soon. With that plant, the total energy capacity will reach two gigawatts, which can provide power to two million houses that is twice the house count in San Francisco. Also, with this over 37 % of the total energy that powers the data centers of the company is being sourced through renewable energy.
More Renewable Energy Facilities Purchases
The energy facility purchases of the company include a 61MW solar plant of North Carolina’s Duke Energy, 76MW wind energy powered plant in Sweden’s Västernorrland County and 80MW solar powered facility in Chile. Most of these deals would be for a 10 to 20 years period. The company believes that adopting renewable energy was a good beginning and will also be a motivating factor for the others in the domain.
Apart from Google there are over 13 other A-list corporate including Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Equinix that are also buying clean energy to power their facilities under the White House’s American Business Act that also included commitments of clean data center from Microsoft and Apple. Google is now the largest corporate buyer of clean energy. The list also includes Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and data center operator Equinix.
Google has announced recently that by 2025, the company would be tripling its current clean energy purchases.
