Rotterdam,
18
November
2014
|
15:00
Europe/Amsterdam

Dutch windmills to power Google’s Eemshaven data center

Google buys 10 years of renewable energy in deal with Dutch power company and wind farm developer Eneco

Windpark Delfzijl

Google and Eneco, Eneco, a leading Dutch renewable power company today announced that Google will buy the entire output of a new wind farm, currently being built at Delfzijl, Netherlands, for a period of ten years, starting early 2016. The deal ensures that Google’s new EUR 600m data center, currently under construction at the Eemshaven, Netherlands, will be powered 100% by locally generated renewable energy from its first day of operation, scheduled for the first half of 2016.

The agreement with Eneco is Google’s third power purchase agreement (PPA) in Europe over the last 18 months, and is the eighth such agreement globally to procure renewable energy for its data centers.

Eneco has already started construction of the new wind farm at Delfzijl. The construction of the 19-turbine project, with a total combined capacity of 62MW, will provide 80 jobs for local contractors over the building period of 18 months.

“We promised that our new Eemshaven datacenter would run on renewable energy from day one of operation - and it will,” said Francois Sterin, Director Global Infrastructure. “Power purchase agreements help give wind farm developers like Eneco the economic certainty to invest in new renewable energy generation capacity, which is good for the environment - but also makes great financial sense for companies like Google.”

“Our agreement with Google is a further endorsement of the potential of wind power and our commitment to sustainable energy”, said Jeroen de Haas, CEO at Eneco. “We’re looking forward to working with Google over the next ten years to help them stay ahead of their commitment to carbon neutrality.”

For further information on Google’s investments in and use of renewable energy, please visit http://www.google.com/green/energy/. You can also pay a virtual visit to our data centers at http://www.google.com/about/data centers/inside/index.html