ERGies Working on Renewable Energy at Google

[Cecilia Han Springer, ERG graduate student]

As soon as we arrived at the Mountain View headquarters, I felt as if I’d stepped onto a playground for adults. It turns out that four (!) ERG alums work on energy and sustainability-related projects at Google...

On Day 1 of the Big Event, ERGies* split up into small groups to embark on a number of exciting field trips. Although I faced a difficult choice – should I go sailing with marine ecologists or hiking in the East Bay chaparral? – one field trip immediately stood out to me: the Google renewable energy tour, led by Sam Arons (MS ’07). While I’ve explored plenty of the Bay Area’s scenic offerings, I had yet to see the strange ecosystem of Silicon Valley tech workers up close.

As soon as we arrived at the Mountain View headquarters, I felt as if I’d stepped onto a playground for adults. Happy Googlers jogged around the campus and zipped by on Google-colored bikes. We passed by a beach volleyball court, a mobile salon, micro-gardens filled with kale, and rows and rows of electric vehicles plugged in to charging stations. In the guest center, I noticed a pile of helmets, which, like the bikes, are passed freely around the campus. Above our heads, a display screen flashed popular Google searches around the world in real time.

Sam led us to the roof of one of the buildings, where Google has installed 1.9 MW of solar panels. These panels generate enough energy to provide 13% of the building’s annual electricity.

It turns out that four (!) ERG alums work on energy and sustainability-related projects at Google  – from Sam’s role in clean energy procurement to analyzing data on Google’s own energy efficiency performance. Another major area of sustainability work at Google is the siting of data centers, considering their massive energy requirements. In fact, data centers consume a little over 1% of global electricity, and Google estimates it is responsible for about 1% of that.

After a Google lunch that truly exceeded all expectations, Sam presented some more information (which I’m not allowed to share) on Google’s carbon footprint, intensity, and offsetting projects. The ERGies on the tour were bursting with questions, and the tour only ended when we were nudged out of our conference rooms by Googlers anxious to get their work done. Although a few questions were left unanswered for lack of time, many of us were heartened by the diligence and expertise of the ERGies steering Google’s sustainability efforts. Keep up the good work!

More information on energy and sustainability at Google: http://www.google.com/green/energy/

*ERGies: ERG alumni, students, faculty, staff, family, friends and ERGlings.


Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.