Google buys wind power to shrink carbon footprint

Google has taken another step to reduce its carbon footprint by signing a 20-year power purchase agreement with NetExtra’s 150MW Energy Resources Story County II wind farm in Iowa.

This deal will be the first by Google Energy LLC, which was formed last December to acquire large volumes of renewable energy by participating in the wholesale market.

Google will start buying 114MW of energy directly from the wind farm on 30 July this year. The remaining 36MW from Story II are currently being sold to the city of Ames in Iowa.

The deal will see the search giant buy 114MW of wind energy directly from the supplier, rather than purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from third parties. Google insists that this approach will better benefit the renewables industry.

In a statement, Google said: "By obtaining RECs through the purchase of green power, our deal has a greater impact on the renewable industry than simply buying naked RECs from third parties. Our long-term commitment directly frees up capital for the developer to build more wind projects."

Google said the 114MW would theoretically be able to supply several data centres. However, it cannot use the energy directly, so will sell it back to the grid in the local market.

In May the internet behemoth ploughed nearly $40m into wind energy.