The Coming Age of 24x7 Renewables
In September 2020, amid the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai made a historic announcement: by 2030, Google will run on 24x7 carbon-free energy. This followed Google’s prior milestones of achieving carbon neutrality in 2007, and sourcing 100% renewable energy since 2017.
Google has led the corporate wave of setting targets to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A 2019 analysis by Natural Capital Partners found that 114 companies (~23%) of the Fortune Global 500 have made public climate commitments, with the lion’s share of recent growth in adopting Science Based Targets (SBT) and Renewable Electricity 100 (RE100) targets:
The First Step: 100% Renewable Energy
Corporate appetite for 100% renewable energy is growing. As of December 2020, the organization RE100 has registered 270 company members across 140 markets, accounting for ~285TWh/year of renewable electricity demand — enough to power a top 20 country. These companies, from Facebook to Goldman Sachs to Walmart, have a median target year of 2025 and average of 2028 to hit 100% renewable electricity:
US towns, cities and states have also pledged 100% renewable energy. The Sierra Club’s “Ready for 100” campaign has logged over 170 cities, 10 counties, and 8 states with explicit targets for 100% renewables. Over 100 million people (~30% of the population) “now live in a community with an official 100% renewable electricity target.” The Sierra Club’s affiliates have a median target year of 2035 and average of 2036 to achieve 100% renewable energy, slightly later than the RE100 — perhaps reflecting the added complexities political entities face in securing a local clean energy supply:
Countries are also joining the 100% renewables fold. A 2019 study by IRENA found that 53 countries (~27% globally) have pledged to achieve “some sort of [national] 100% renewable energy target,” with African (n=17) and Asian (n=13) nations leading the way. Most countries (~81%) are targeting 2050 to achieve 100% renewable energy, later than the companies and subnational entities mentioned — and as of 2019, Iceland was the only country to achieve 100% renewable electricity status:
The Coming Age of 24x7 Renewable Energy
There’s an important catch. Given the urgency of our climate crisis, in which we now have 9 years to halve global emissions to maximize our chances of hitting the 1.5oC global warming target, striving for 100% renewable energy may not be enough. Behemoths like Google and Microsoft have recognized that to achieve a net zero (or even negative) emissions future, targeting 24x7 renewable energy is a necessary bet.
What’s the difference between 100% and 24x7 renewable energy? From an electricity perspective, two factors: time and location.
Achieving 100% renewable energy, the lower bar, means buying the same annual amount of electricity from clean sources (e.g., wind & solar) to match an organization’s yearly electricity consumption, regardless of where and when in the year that clean electricity was produced. Mechanisms like Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) and Purchase Power Agreements (PPAs) enable entities to procure and achieve 100% renewable energy.
24x7 renewable energy is a much higher bar: in each of the 8,760 hours in a year, an organization’s electricity demand must equal its renewable supply, in the local regions where it draws power. Google’s “hourly carbon clocks” elegantly capture this distinction, based on data from a single day in September 2019. Even though the firm has been 100% renewable since 2017, in reality there was significant variation in the carbon intensity of the hourly electricity supply for each of its data centers (also, go Oklahoma — 96% carbon-free!):
This important shift in clean energy ambition is one we will increasingly see across the private and public sector, spurred by humanity’s most consequential climate decade. This is why Google calls it their “biggest sustainability moonshot yet,” presenting significantly greater practical and technical barriers than achieving 100% renewable energy.
To get to 24x7 renewable energy, we will need a number of breakthroughs. In the electricity sector, these include:
Supply-side innovations
- Long duration energy storage (e.g., pumped heat, aqueous air batteries)
- Clean baseload & dispatchable power (e.g., enhanced geothermal, CCS)
- Renewable asset bundling (e.g., complementary solar & wind portfolios)
- AI-driven clean power contracts (e.g., 24x7 matching of grid renewables)
Demand-side innovations
- Energy efficiency measures (e.g., hardware/software to reduce loads)
- Demand management (e.g., load-shifting to high renewable periods)
- Policy measures (e.g., Renewable/GHG mandates, R&D spending)
In future posts, I will dig into some of these innovations — including why the 2020s will be game-changing for long duration energy storage startups like Malta, where I worked last summer, which is pioneering 100MW+ scale, 8–24+ hour duration solutions by storing excess renewable electricity as heat in molten salt tanks.
The consequences of our actions — or inaction — in this decade could make the COVID-19 pandemic seem paltry in comparison. It’s time to work on a 24x7 renewable energy future, now.
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