Featured in Marching orders for coal – 12-2021

24/7 heaven

It’s what Google calls its “biggest sustainability moonshot yet” – 24/7 hourly matching – a new granular phase of renewable energy sourcing. The pursuit of 24/7 moves beyond buying enough renewable energy to match annual consumption, to matching consumption every hour of every day. Some say 24/7 matching could push up the price of renewables, but others say 24/7 is the only way to drive home decarbonization, minimize greenwashing, and create a truly net-zero energy system.

By

Blake Matich

08 Dec 2021

Iron Mountain, a 24/7 advocate, installed 7.2 MW of solar on its data center in Edison, New Jersey. The system supplies up to 15% of the facility’s electricity load. | Image: Iron Mountain

Just as black and white film made way for Technicolor and resolution reached high definition, so too will the current annual accounting of energy consumption make way for the better optics on hourly accounting, or what is known as 24/7 hourly matching. Consumers need to know if their electricity is renewable or not, and unfortunately …

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