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Tech giants are pledged to reduce their carbon footprint and invest more in renewable energy resources. The plan is to reach net zero by 2050. Google is one of those tech firms that has taken serious steps to fulfill its net-zero commitments. The company has recently opened a new geothermal plant in Nevada to feed the power grid that powers two regional data centers.
Google’s geothermal plant in Nevada comes after the firm announced its partnership with Fervo. The startup works on building new-generation geothermal projects. Working on this new plant started in 2021 when Google announced the “world’s first corporate agreement to develop a next-generation geothermal power project.”
The plant has a capacity of 3.5 MW. It transfers the generated electricity to a local grid that powers two Google data centers outside of Las Vegas and Reno. Geothermal projects are able to produce energy in all weather conditions. This is a significant advantage over wind and solar farms.
Google opens a geothermal plant in Nevada to feed its data centers
Google has already announced plans for “Operating on 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy by 2030.” The company also claims it reached 64% carbon-free energy globally on an hourly basis in 2022. As we get closer to the deadline, Google needs to move away from fossil fuels and double its investments in renewable energy resources.
“If you think about how much we advanced wind and solar and lithium-ion storage, here we are — this is kind of the next set of stuff and we feel like companies have a huge role to play in advancing these technologies,” Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google, noted.
Meanwhile, the geothermal plant in Nevada benefits from new methods and technologies to produce energy. According to Terrell, the plant was built on an existing geothermal field with hot rocks but no fluid. Fervo drilled two horizontal wells to push water through fractures in the rock to heat it and generate steam.
The startup also placed fiber optic cables inside the two wells to gather data on how its geothermal system works. Bill Gates and the US Department of Energy currently support Fervo’s technology.