ElectricityMap supplies hourly consumption mix and carbon intensity, enabling Google to assess its progress towards matching all operational electricity use with locally sourced carbon free sources 24/7.
Today, corporate actors that want to lead the effort against climate impacts by buying enough carbon free electricity to cover their own usage must contend with times and places where their operations still physically rely on fossil-fuel based electricity. Indeed because of the coarse time granularity of Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) – typically monthly or yearly – there is no guarantee that the real-time, physical energy consumption matches the claims acquired through certificates. ElectricityMap organises the world’s electricity data and provides hourly location-based electricity consumption breakdown and carbon intensity, which shows the true reliance of electricity usage on carbon emitting sources.
Google, in its leading effort to realize a carbon-free future, has pledged to achieve 24/7 carbon-free energy usage by 2030. This means that Google is committing to supplying all its operations, across the world, at all times, with regional carbon-free energy. Measuring how close Google is to its target and evaluating how to best reach its objective requires data for 24/7 matching. ElectricityMap’s data about the resource mix on all the grids where Google operates, combined with consumption and contracted carbon-free electricity, allows the assessment of Google’s worldwide operations, at every hour.
In 2020, 67% of electricity that Google consumed was matched with regional carbon-free sources, with stark differences between regions. For example, in Singapore, where electricity is almost exclusively produced from gas, only 4% of consumed electricity could be matched to carbon-free sources, while that figure reached 93% in Iowa, where Google’s operations are supplied from wind farms. This data-driven assessment reveals how to best focus efforts to reach 100% 24/7 carbon-free energy.
ElectricityMap’s data thus provides actionable data quantifying how carbon intensive electricity is on an hourly basis, which is a crucial building block towards achieving 24/7 carbon-free energy.
For more information about the case study:
https://www.gstatic.com/gumdrop/sustainability/247-carbon-free-energy.pdf
