Google has signed a long-term agreement with NextEra Energy Resources to purchase enough local wind energy to offset the electrical consumption of its North Bayshore headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., on an annual basis.
The agreement will help to repower an iconic Bay Area wind farm at California’s Altamont Pass with new turbines that will pour 43 MW of electricity into the grid starting in 2016.
The new technology is twice as efficient. Once the installation is complete, and the 370 legacy turbines are replaced, it will take just 24 new ones to generate as much power as the North Bayshore campus uses in a year.
The new turbines will generate energy that feeds into the grid that powers Google’s North Bayshore buildings. While the energy generated won’t feed the campus directly, Google will be able to use a system of renewable energy credits (RECs) to track how much energy leaves the turbines and how much energy it uses on campus each year.
To date, Google has secured 1.1 GW of renewable energy for its campus and data centers through agreements like this one.
