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Comment by cosmic_ape | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone explain this: If all they do is buy and sell electricity from renewable sources, while using the regular grid to actually power the data-centers, then why do they do it at all? Is it a form of philanthropy?

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Even if they were powering their data-centers directly from renewable sources, bypassing the grid, it would still be a form of philanthropy to whatever degree it raises their cost beyond burning coal and dumping the pollution on someone else.

Since global warming is a global problem (and other forms of pollution from burning coal or gas can travel long distances) it doesn't matter where the carbon is saved, it's basically equivalent, so they're just being pragmatic in their philanthropy.

This could be thought of as a subset of their wider goal to be carbon neutral (which again, could be described as philanthropic in nature), presumably funding the roll out of renewable energy seemed like a cost effective way to work towards that goal.

I don't get why this is the same thing : if every company is doing this, every company is still powered by fossil fuels, and just producing renewable energy that won't be used anywhere.

Edit: as the energy they buy is sent into the grid, if all companies do this, the renewable energy can be sufficient to power all companies, so I guess that makes sense

There is some cost to integrating renewables into the grid, though most experts seem to suggest the first 80% or so isn't that hard, and we're so far away from that in most places that the positive externalities massively outweigh any negative.

If people did use this model to get to 100% then presumably the final 20% or so would be more expensive, since you'd still be paying grid prices for your usage, then selling the same amount of renewable power to try to cancel out that cost. If that renewable power is worth much less, because of integration costs, then you'll be paying much higher costs overall.

(Note, paying much higher costs is a good thing, since it gives a market incentive for people to invest in storage technologies, demand/response, efficiency etc. This is similar to big companies like Microsoft changing an internal carbon tax to redirect investment).

Thanks !

And why do they sell at loss the energy ? Does this mean that they just exchange the energy they buy for grid energy to power their datacenter, and that the energy they get is cheaper than the one they're buying?

The spot price of power changes by the minute. Google pays for the wind farm's output; they're more concerned about replacing dirty MWs with clean MWs, and less about if they're making a profit on each MWh of power.

Thanks, this explains it. Do you think there are numbers somewhere about how much carbon is saved globally due to this? Them selling the energy may drive down the prices, increasing demand. So it could be that more energy is consumed at the same carbon level, rather then less carbon emitted. Perhaps they are paying for someone's bitcoin mining.

Google's approach subsidizes the additional cost of renewable energy sources over fossil fuels. Because Google sells exactly what they consume, they aren't actually inducing more electricity demand. And even if that was a factor, renewables are still an order of magnitude more green than coal.[1] So feel free to invest in solar companies :-)

By the way, carbon neutrality is easier to achieve than 100% renewable. Google has been carbon neutral since 2007,[2] which means that they purchase carbon offsets for their carbon usage. Carbon offsets are cheaper than renewable energy credits because there is lower-hanging fruit. For example, agreeing not to clear-cut a forest for 20 years generates millions of tons of carbon credits.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emis...

[2] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/carbon-neutrality-by...

Still don't quite get it. Additional power sold to the grid means competition to the coal-burning power plants. Assuming the plant's only goal is profit, would they just produce less power and lose money? Or would they try to lower the prices, to possibly lose a little less money? And then, if the prices do drop, the demand may rise due to the drop, and could even lead to producing more power by the plant. So Google selling that electricity could yield to even higher carbon emissions. No?

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