Google Inc. has begun construction on its fifth European datacenter – a €600 million facility located just outside Fredericia, in western Denmark.
“In Fredericia, Google is committed to matching its energy use with 100 percent carbon-free energy,” the internet giant said on its blog. “This commitment includes the electricity use of our data centers, too.”
It is now seeking PPAs from various Danish renewable energy projects, including from on- and off-shore wind and solar energy projects. “In Europe, Google data centers typically use one third less energy than a typical data center, yet we’re still striving to use even less,” the company continued.
Completion of the facility is expected to be finalized by the end of 2021. The group’s other European datacenters are located in Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium. For the Dutch facility, the company said it would also be powered by a 30 MW solar plant through a 10-year PPA with Dutch energy provider Eneco. As for the Belgian datacenter, it is powered by a €3 million solar plant.
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As of April 2018, Google had contracts to purchase 3 GW of output from renewable energy projects worldwide. These led to over $3 billion in new capital investment around the world, the company said at the time.
In our latest ‘Weekend read: Hand in hand', pv magazine looked at the convergence of datacenters and renewables.
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