Google buys new Finnish wind power in renewable energy search engine

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Google announced that it has signed a 10-year agreement to purchase renewable energy from three new wind farms being built in Finland, which will power one of its data centers.

Big companies are rushing to source cheap renewable energy to manage costs and reduce their carbon footprints through so-called power purchase agreements (PPAs), which allow companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook and Microsoft buy energy directly from the energy producer.

Google said Tuesday that the deal in Finland is the first under which the company buys electricity from European projects that will not receive any government subsidies.

“In more and more locations, the cost of new renewable energy is competitive with the cost of grid power,” Marc Oman, Google’s EU energy lead, said in a blog post.

The three farms will have a combined capacity of 190 megawatts (MW) and will be built by French renewable energy company Neoen and German companies CPC and WPD.

Data from industry association WindEurope shows that new wind power installations in Europe fell by more than a quarter in the first half of 2018 to 4.5 gigawatts (GW), pointing to intensifying competition as government support is withdrawn.

In many countries, wind power has become competitive with conventional energy. Large companies cope with variable energy costs by setting electricity costs at a fixed level.

Last year, the number of new PPAs signed by companies, mainly for wind and solar energy, reached a record high, with more than 5 gigawatts signed, up almost a third from 2016 levels, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Some European countries, notably Germany and the Netherlands, have recently attracted bids from wind project developers who were not granted any subsidies. This has put enormous pressure on turbine manufacturers as the industry has become dependent on government support.

Google’s Finnish data centre is housed in a former paper mill, originally built in the 1950s, and uses water from the Baltic Sea for cooling.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen and Christoph Steitz, additional reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Alexander Smith)