Google’s electricity consumption for its data centers has more than doubled in just four years, rising from 14.4 million megawatt-hours in 2020 to 30.8 million megawatt-hours in 2024. This surge is primarily driven by the rapid expansion of AI workloads and cloud services hosted in these facilities, which now account for 95.8% of Google’s total electricity use.
Despite this massive increase in energy demand, Google has maintained a strong commitment to sustainability. The company aims to power all its operations with carbon-free electricity and has made significant investments—around $20 billion—in renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear power. However, only about 66% of the energy consumed by its data centers was matched with clean power on an hourly basis in 2024, highlighting ongoing challenges in fully decarbonizing its infrastructure.
Google’s data centers are among the most energy-efficient globally, with a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of approximately 1.09 in early 2025, significantly better than the industry average of 1.56. This means Google uses about 84% less overhead energy per unit of computing power compared to typical data centers. Still, as PUE approaches the theoretical optimum of 1.0, further efficiency gains are increasingly incremental.
The company’s sustainability report also notes a 12% reduction in data center energy emissions in 2024 compared to 2023, despite the increase in electricity consumption. Google credits this to innovations in energy management, improved TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) efficiency, and supplier engagement. Furthermore, Google has signed a pioneering corporate agreement to procure nuclear energy from small modular reactors (SMRs), aiming to support its goal of 24/7 carbon-free energy and net zero emissions by 2030. The tech giant has invested in Commonwealth Fusion Systems and secured a deal to buy 200 MW from their upcoming Arc facility, slated to go online in the early 2030s. Additionally, Google has agreed to procure 500 MW from Kairos Power’s small modular reactor initiative.
Google’s data center energy use has doubled amid the AI boom, posing significant challenges to its carbon-free energy ambitions, but the company continues to lead the industry in efficiency and clean energy procurement while investing heavily to meet growing power demands sustainably.