Google announced today that it plans to buy more wind power to indirectly power a data center in Oklahoma and to help it reach its goal of increasing the amount of clean power used by its data centers. Google wants to buy clean power for its data centers and purchased another 240 megawatts from a wind farm outside of Amarillo, Texas, called Happy Hereford, which will be live in late 2014. The wind power contract — Google’s largest purchase agreement to date — will send power into the area of the grid where Google’s Mayes County, Okla., data center operates.
The Happy Hereford wind farm deal is Google’s first wind purchase contract in Texas, and the farm itself is being developed by a Native American-owned company in Oklahoma called Chermac Energy. In total Google has invested over $1 billion into 2 GW — or a Hoover’s Dam worth — of clean power projects. These investments have been in the form of equity into projects, directly and indirectly buying clean power, investing in clean power startups, and even more experimental initiatives like buying wind startup Makani Power.