Google powering ahead with renewable energy

Google, one of the nation’s leading high-tech companies, has a strong commitment to renewable energy and plans to stick with that commitment over the long term, Gary Demasi, the firm’s Director of Operations for Data Center Location Strategy and Energy, said today at the WINDPOWER 2013 Conference & Exhibition here.

“Google’s values around renewable energy go up to the C-level of the company–Larry Page is a supporter,” Demasi said. “As a company, we’ve been carbon-neutral since 2007.”

Recently, Facebook, another tech giant, made some wind power-related waves when it announced that it would build a new data center in Altoona, Iowa, in part because of that state’s abundant supply of wind energy.

Google, which already has data centers in Iowa and Oklahoma, another windy state, is increasingly seeing its desire for renewable energy as an economic development tool, Demasi said: “When it comes to the site selection process itself, increasingly, renewable energy is part of our consideration.