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Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

electrek.co

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Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#11

Post by ZeroGravitas »

allenz wrote: post #6

Great work. Specifically, Google purchases 3 GW of renewable energy and sells it to the grid at a loss.[1] This isn't the same as being directly powered by renewables because they don't have to worry about time shifting supply and demand, which is often done using natural gas. [1] cloud.google.com/environment/

A more important caveat is that it's only talking about their electricity usage, presumably people still drive to work in ICE cars, fly airplanes, ship devices around the world, the accounting for even just electricity usage can extend out to suppliers and suppliers of suppliers etc.

But it's still a very good thing and others should follow suit.

Also, can you show your working for them "selling at a loss". They generate renewable energy then sell the energy and keep the certificates that say it's renewable, those are both worth something. Are you saying they could have bought the certificates on the open market for less, because I don't think that's the case.

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#12

Post by cosmic_ape »

allenz wrote: post #6

Great work. Specifically, Google purchases 3 GW of renewable energy and sells it to the grid at a loss.[1] This isn't the same as being directly powered by renewables because they don't have to worry about time shifting supply and demand, which is often done using natural gas. [1] cloud.google.com/environment/

Can anyone explain this: If all they do is buy and sell electricity from renewable sources, while using the regular grid to actually power the data-centers, then why do they do it at all? Is it a form of philanthropy?

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#13

Post by ZeroGravitas »

cosmic_ape wrote: post #12
allenz wrote: post #6

Great work. Specifically, Google purchases 3 GW of renewable energy and sells it to the grid at a loss.[1] This isn't the same as being directly powered by renewables because they don't have to worry about time shifting supply and demand, which is often done using natural gas. [1] cloud.google.com/environment/

Can anyone explain this: If all they do is buy and sell electricity from renewable sources, while using the regular grid to actually power the data-centers, then why do they do it at all? Is it a form of philanthropy?

Even if they were powering their data-centers directly from renewable sources, bypassing the grid, it would still be a form of philanthropy to whatever degree it raises their cost beyond burning coal and dumping the pollution on someone else.

Since global warming is a global problem (and other forms of pollution from burning coal or gas can travel long distances) it doesn't matter where the carbon is saved, it's basically equivalent, so they're just being pragmatic in their philanthropy.

This could be thought of as a subset of their wider goal to be carbon neutral (which again, could be described as philanthropic in nature), presumably funding the roll out of renewable energy seemed like a cost effective way to work towards that goal.

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#14

Post by cdancette »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #13
cosmic_ape wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain this: If all they do is buy and sell electricity from renewable sources, while using the regular grid to actually power the data-centers, then why do they do it at all? Is it a form of philanthropy?

Even if they were powering their data-centers directly from renewable sources, bypassing the grid, it would still be a form of philanthropy to whatever degree it raises their cost beyond burning coal and dumping the pollution on someone else. Since global warming is a global problem (and other forms of pollution from burning coal or gas can travel long distances) it doesn't matter where the carbon is saved, it's basi…

I don't get why this is the same thing : if every company is doing this, every company is still powered by fossil fuels, and just producing renewable energy that won't be used anywhere.

Edit: as the energy they buy is sent into the grid, if all companies do this, the renewable energy can be sufficient to power all companies, so I guess that makes sense

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#15

Post by cosmic_ape »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #13
cosmic_ape wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain this: If all they do is buy and sell electricity from renewable sources, while using the regular grid to actually power the data-centers, then why do they do it at all? Is it a form of philanthropy?

Even if they were powering their data-centers directly from renewable sources, bypassing the grid, it would still be a form of philanthropy to whatever degree it raises their cost beyond burning coal and dumping the pollution on someone else. Since global warming is a global problem (and other forms of pollution from burning coal or gas can travel long distances) it doesn't matter where the carbon is saved, it's basi…

Thanks, this explains it. Do you think there are numbers somewhere about how much carbon is saved globally due to this? Them selling the energy may drive down the prices, increasing demand. So it could be that more energy is consumed at the same carbon level, rather then less carbon emitted. Perhaps they are paying for someone's bitcoin mining.

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#16

Post by ZeroGravitas »

cdancette wrote: post #14
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they were powering their data-centers directly from renewable sources, bypassing the grid, it would still be a form of philanthropy to whatever degree it raises their cost beyond burning coal and dumping the pollution on someone else. Since global warming is a global problem (and other forms of pollution from burning coal or gas can travel long distances) it doesn't matter where the carbon is saved, it's basi…

I don't get why this is the same thing : if every company is doing this, every company is still powered by fossil fuels, and just producing renewable energy that won't be used anywhere. Edit: as the energy they buy is sent into the grid, if all companies do this, the renewable energy can be sufficient to power all companies, so I guess that makes sense

There is some cost to integrating renewables into the grid, though most experts seem to suggest the first 80% or so isn't that hard, and we're so far away from that in most places that the positive externalities massively outweigh any negative.

If people did use this model to get to 100% then presumably the final 20% or so would be more expensive, since you'd still be paying grid prices for your usage, then selling the same amount of renewable power to try to cancel out that cost. If that renewable power is worth much less, because of integration costs, then you'll be paying much higher costs overall.

(Note, paying much higher costs is a good thing, since it gives a market incentive for people to invest in storage technologies, demand/response, efficiency etc. This is similar to big companies like Microsoft changing an internal carbon tax to redirect investment).

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#17

Post by m0llusk »

This is great progress, but there are still some significant low hanging fruit to consider. For example, the power it takes to display the all white background of the search and other top Google pages is significant. Changing that to black or partly black or some darker color could save amounts of energy that are hard to calculate and represent draw from all over the network.

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#18

Post by cdancette »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #16
cdancette wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why this is the same thing : if every company is doing this, every company is still powered by fossil fuels, and just producing renewable energy that won't be used anywhere. Edit: as the energy they buy is sent into the grid, if all companies do this, the renewable energy can be sufficient to power all companies, so I guess that makes sense

There is some cost to integrating renewables into the grid, though most experts seem to suggest the first 80% or so isn't that hard, and we're so far away from that in most places that the positive externalities massively outweigh any negative. If people did use this model to get to 100% then presumably the final 20% or so would be more expensive, since you'd still be paying grid prices for your usage, then selling t…

Thanks !

And why do they sell at loss the energy ? Does this mean that they just exchange the energy they buy for grid energy to power their datacenter, and that the energy they get is cheaper than the one they're buying?

Re: Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth

#20

Post by asdgkknio »

m0llusk wrote: post #17

This is great progress, but there are still some significant low hanging fruit to consider. For example, the power it takes to display the all white background of the search and other top Google pages is significant. Changing that to black or partly black or some darker color could save amounts of energy that are hard to calculate and represent draw from all over the network.

Not on an LCD. The backlight is always on, even if the screen is black.

I wonder how much power the 50 pounds of JS on Youtube costs.

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