Tech giants, Apple and Google rush to 100 percent renewables

In what seemed to be an orchestrated rush towards some virtual finish line, the world’s top tech giants, Apple and Google, both announced they have met their worldwide power goals with renewables.

First, it was Google. The company announced in a blog post that it has achieved its 100 percent renewables goal.

The article adds that the company’s total purchase of energy from renewable sources, such as wind and solar in 2017, exceeded the amount of electricity it consumed. Saying renewables now power their global operations, including offices and data centers.

In the same light, Apple announced, in a rather flashy news release/blog post, that all of its global operations are now also powered exclusively by renewable energy.

Adding that the operations range from retail stores, offices, data centers and co-located facilities in 43 countries—including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and India.

As for Google, the company continuously signs new renewable energy generation contracts in markets where they operate.

In 2016, it signed a record number of new contracts for wind and solar developments that began operating in 2017—and that additional output of renewable energy was enough to cover more than 100 percent of the company’s power needs.

The company still intends to purchase 3 gigawatts of renewable energy projects—the largest corporate contract in terms of capacity.

Apple currently has 25 operational renewable energy projects around the world, totaling 626 megawatts of generation capacity.

There seems to be something interesting in renewables. We are witnessing two of the largest public companies on earth rushing to power their operations with electricity from renewable energy.

These companies exist solely to make money for shareholders. So there must be something lucrative in going renewable, and smaller companies should follow this example which will help them save on operational electricity costs.

But for the case of very large companies like Google and Apple, its better and easier for them to simply source their electricity directly from renewable projects, rather than buy emissions credits or carbon offsets.