Google To Run Completely Off Renewable Energy In 2017
LIVERMORE (KPIX 5) -- Google is making a 100 percent commitment to green energy in 2017.
On Tuesday, Google's announcement makes the tech company the number one purchaser of renewable energy in the U.S.
Google will gets its energy from all kinds of sources, but most of it comes from windpower, including the iconic wind farms along the Altamont Pass. The company also buys electricity from Ivanpah, the huge solar farm in Southern California.
All told, Google is on track to buy 2.6 gigawatts of renewable power in 2017.
To put it in perspective, that's about as much power as all of San Francisco uses in one year.
Part of what's making this possible is that wind and solar have gotten a lot cheaper.
Google says over the past six years, wind prices have dropped 60 percent, and solar 80 percent.
For technology companies, it makes switching to renewables a no-brainer.
In their official blog posting on Tuesday, the company released a chart showing that they buy about as much renewable energy as Amazon, the Department of Defense, Microsoft, and Facebook combined.
Walmart, Apple and General Motors have announced plans to someday get 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources as well.
