Google Teams Up With Cities, Including Paris and London, to Stake Out 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy

C40, a network of over 100 mayors of significant cities concerned with climate change, and Google have announced the beginning of a new 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy for Cities programme, which aims to enable cities to function solely on sustainable energy around the clock.

Over 65 per cent of the world's energy consumption and more than 70 per cent of global CO2 emissions are attributable to urban areas, making them a key priority for climate action. The new initiative aims to create and execute strategies, methods, and technologies to enable cities to attain carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week (24/7 CFE) and to support cities wishing to take the lead in the energy transformation.

According to C40 Executive Director Mark Watts:

"C40 cities have once again demonstrated that they are doers, not laggards. By embracing innovation and collaboration, they are not only helping to investigate the concept of 24/7 carbon-free energy, but they are also expediting the energy transition, phasing out expensive and volatile fossil fuels that are the basis of the energy costs dilemma."

The programme will launch with first pilot cities, including London, Copenhagen, and Paris, each of which will focus on a unique difficulty associated with decarbonizing urban power usage. Pilots will focus on time-matched procurement of clean energy for municipal operations, shifting energy usage to times of day when solar and wind resources are most abundant, and increasing local clean energy through mini-grids and battery storage. The pilots will also examine legislative and market reforms to extend access to clean energy and guarantee that residents receive the economic, job, and health benefits of the transition to clean energy.

Mayor of London and C40 chairman Sadiq Khan said:

"Fossil fuels are the main cause of the climate emergency, so I'm asking cities all over the world to join London in making a promise to quickly stop using them." use. This partnership with Google is an important step towards phasing out fossil fuels, lowering carbon emissions, and creating a cleaner London for all."

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, declared a 24/7 CFE goal in 2020, seeking to run its whole business on carbon-free energy by 2030, in addition to other targets such as assisting 500 communities in reducing carbon emissions and reducing 1 billion tonnes of carbon emissions yearly by 2030.

Under the terms of the new partnership, Google will supply the partner cities with expertise based on its own 24/7 CFE activities, including data and essential legislative and market reforms, and will also contribute $900,000 to the programme.

Caroline Golin, the global head of Google's policy and market development for the energy sector, said:

"At Google, we aim to operate on carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week by 2030, both to decarbonize our own operations and to expedite the global decarbonization of electricity networks. We have always understood that we cannot reach this objective on our own, and we believe that cities play a crucial role in pushing the system-level changes necessary to deliver a carbon-free energy future.