Google, Meta, Amazon Led the Big Tech Push for Renewables in 2024

Renewable energy projects grew in size and scope in 2024, partly due to technology companies like Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta. Two forces drove this trend: net-zero goals and data centers.

Tech companies are among the most energy-intensive industries, and their loads are increasing exponentially with the advent of data centers for artificial intelligence training and application. At the same time, they are producing more carbon dioxide emissions than in previous years. Renewable energy allows these tech titans to reduce their carbon footprint while relieving stress on the power grid.

Here are some major renewable energy stories EEPower covered in 2024.

Solar plus storage facility. Image used courtesy of Amazon

Amazon

• Baldy Mesa solar+storage: The 1,000-acre facility in California will supply 150 MW of solar energy and 75 MW of battery energy storage to benefit the community. Amazon Web Services will optimize the system to offset 300,000 tons of CO₂ emissions annually.

Google

• $1 billion for microgrids: An Alphabet-Google spinoff, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, is building battery-powered microgrids for AI data center use. The billion-dollar project will use Tesla’s Powerwall batteries.
• Taiwan solar project: A 1 GW solar project will power Google’s data centers and offices in Taiwan.

Meta

• Geothermal for data centers: Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) will power some of its data centers with geothermal energy.

Apple

• Solar for Texas: Apple’s investment in a 2,300-acre solar farm will include more than 900,000 solar panels and supply power to over 114,000 homes.
• Bifacial solar: In Spain, Apple contributed to the 105 MW Castaño Solar project, which will use bifacial solar panels to capture more rays.
• Rooftop in India: Six industrial areas in India are getting rooftop solar. Apple will use the solar energy to power its offices, retail stores, and other operations and reduce its CO₂ emissions by 200,000 tons.

Microsoft/Bill Gates

• Hoping for fusion: Microsoft believes nuclear fusion may be the future’s choice renewable. To that end, the company has invested in Helion Energy, a startup developing a commercially viable fusion generator.
• Bill Gates rides the wind: Since Bill Gates left Microsoft, he has focused much of his energy and money on renewable projects. His venture capital firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has invested in Airloom Energy, maker of a “roller-coaster” style wind generator.
• Gates goes for nuclear: Gates’ TerraPower company will build an advanced nuclear reactor demonstration in a closed coal plant in Wyoming. The facility will connect to a molten salt energy system for storage.