Google's 400MW LatAm renewables: Clean energy up, consumption up

Google has signed more than 400MW of clean energy purchase agreements in Latin America across four projects, even as it increased electricity and water consumption at its regional data center operations.

The figure was disclosed in the company’s latest sustainability report, which does not identify all four projects. 

In Chile, Google sources renewable energy primarily from the El Romero solar plant, an ACCIONA-developed photovoltaic facility in the Atacama Desert with 246MWp of installed capacity (196MW nominal), of which 80MW has been contracted by Google.

The regional agreements are part of Google’s broader global clean energy push. 

Between 2010 and 2025, the company said it signed more than 240 power purchase agreements totaling nearly 35GW of new renewable capacity worldwide. More than 12GW were contracted in 2025 alone, marking the largest annual procurement in the company’s history and exceeding the combined volume signed during the previous two years, according to Google.

Regional electricity demand grows

At the same time, Google’s power consumption in Latin America continued to rise.

Total electricity use reached 639,700MWh in 2025, up from 500,400MWh a year earlier. Of that total, 526,200MWh came from renewable energy sources, compared with 411,900MWh in 2024.

Google operates cloud regions and services hosted in data centers in Brazil, Chile and Mexico. However, only its Chilean facilities – located in Quilicura and San Bernardo, near Santiago – are owned and operated directly by the company and therefore included in the detailed sustainability metrics for data center operations.

In Chile, Google reported a 90% hourly carbon-free energy (CFE) match for its data centers in 2025, the third-highest rate among all company-owned data center locations worldwide, behind only Finland (98%) and Denmark (92%).

Chile’s CFE rate last year comprised 81% from contracted carbon-free energy and 8% from consumed CFE, while the local electricity grid averaged 62% carbon-free generation.

The result represents a slight decline from 2024, when the Chilean facilities achieved a 92% CFE rate, including 79% contracted CFE and 13% consumed CFE, against a grid average of 67%.

Despite the year-on-year reduction, Chile remains well above Google’s global average CFE rate, which fell to 65% in 2025 from 66% the previous year.

Overall, Latin America’s reported CFE average – effectively reflecting Google’s Chilean operations – was 90% in 2025, compared with 92% in 2024 and 91% in 2023.

Energy efficiency remains high

Google also sustained highly efficient operations at its Chilean facilities.

The Quilicura data center posted a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.08 in 2024, improving slightly from 1.09 the previous year.

PUE measures the ratio between total facility energy consumption and the electricity used by IT equipment. A theoretical perfect score is 1.0, indicating virtually no overhead energy consumption.

Despite that, PUE is not a one-time measurement. Tracking PUE over time for a single data center provides a more meaningful indication of performance against its baseline, according to Vertiv, a major provider of energy efficiency equipment for data centers.

“Comparing PUE measurements against various data centers, even very similar facilities, proves to be challenging. Two data centers, roughly the same size but in different locations (perhaps different regions or countries) could easily consume power in dramatically different ways for a number of reasons. For instance, differences in local climate and weather, power grid services, and even facility building materials may impact energy usage.”

Water consumption

Water use also increased as Google’s Chilean operations expanded.

At the Quilicura campus, water withdrawal reached 278.2 million gallons in 2025, up from 219.0 million gallons in 2024.

Of the 2025 total, 135.2 million gallons were discharged and 143.0 million gallons were consumed. In 2024, the facility discharged 97.2 million gallons and consumed 121.8 million gallons.

Google’s newer San Bernardo data center remains in the early stages of occupancy and therefore reports substantially lower water use. 

There, water withdrawal totaled 0.9 million gallons in 2025, with 0.8 million gallons discharged and 0.1 million gallons consumed, compared with 0.3 million, 0.3 million and 0.03 million gallons, respectively, in 2024.

Beyond its own operations, Google said it continues investing in water stewardship projects in Chile.

The company is expanding its partnership with Agua Segura in the Maipo River basin, where prolonged drought and higher temperatures have increased pressure on regional water resources.

“To help, we’re expanding our partnership with Agua Segura in Santiago, Chile, to optimize irrigation across 150 hectares (370 acres) of farmland. By using Agrow Analytics’s management software, farmers can integrate local weather forecasts with crop conditions to irrigate with precision. This data-driven approach prevents overwatering and excess runoff, helping secure critical savings for a watershed that serves as a lifeline for much of Chile’s population,” the company said.

(The original version of this content was written in English)