Matt Brittin (pictured), president of Google Europe, Middle East and Africa, said the move is due to two new clean energy projects that bring additional clean energy to the grid.
“This announcement is the result of our first-ever long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) in Spain and the UK: 100MW of offshore wind from Engie in the UK, and 149MW of solar energy from IB Vogt in Spain,” said Brittin in a post on Google’s blog.
He said: “Since 2017, we’ve matched 100% of our electricity use with renewable energy annually – but this goes further, allowing the electricity consumed by Google cloud regions and offices in the UK and Spain to be matched with local, carbon-free sources of energy on an hourly basis.”
Brittin added: “These deals add new clean energy to their respective national electricity grids by supporting the construction of new wind and solar farms. They also help establish the UK and Spain as two of our cleanest cloud regions not just in Europe, but in the world, joining Finland, Iowa, Montreal, Oregon, and Toronto as regions operating at or near 90% CFE [carbon pollution-free electricity].”
Google Cloud customers outside the UK and Spain will be able to benefit by using the company’s region picker tool to choose to run their workloads from any of our green regions, including Spain and the UK, said Brittin, a former chartered surveyor who has been with the company for 16 years.
