DeepSummary
The podcast episode features a discussion with Maud Texier, the global director of clean energy and decarbonization development at Google, about the company's ambitious goals for achieving 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. Texier explains her background in the energy industry and her role at Google in pursuing innovative solutions to meet the company's energy needs while reducing emissions.
A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the growing demand for electricity, particularly from data centers and artificial intelligence applications. Texier acknowledges the challenges posed by this rapid growth but also sees it as an opportunity to drive investment in clean energy technologies and grid modernization. She discusses Google's approach to procuring clean energy, including partnerships with utilities and investments in emerging technologies like enhanced geothermal, advanced nuclear, and long-duration energy storage.
The episode also touches on the broader policy landscape and the need for collaboration between companies, utilities, and regulators to facilitate the transition to a decarbonized energy system. Texier emphasizes the importance of data transparency, innovative pricing models, and incentives for demand-side flexibility to enable the integration of more renewable energy and ensure grid reliability.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Google has set ambitious goals to achieve 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 and net-zero emissions across all operations and value chains.
- The growing demand for electricity from data centers and AI applications is driving the need for increased clean energy capacity and grid modernization.
- Google is pursuing a multi-pronged approach, including procuring renewable energy, investing in emerging technologies like enhanced geothermal and advanced nuclear, and collaborating with utilities and policymakers.
- Data transparency, innovative pricing models, and incentives for demand-side flexibility are crucial for enabling the integration of more renewable energy and ensuring grid reliability.
- Achieving the energy transition requires collaboration and partnerships across various stakeholders, including companies, utilities, regulators, and policymakers.
- Advanced technologies like AI and digitalization are seen as key drivers for accelerating the transition to a decarbonized energy system.
- Regulatory models and business models for utilities need to evolve to support the deployment of clean energy and accommodate the changing energy landscape.
- Addressing the energy trilemma of decarbonization, reliability, and affordability remains a significant challenge, requiring careful consideration of impacts on various stakeholders.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “I really always loved, I would say, the complexity of how the power grid infrastructure was working. And when you lay on top of that, the complexity of the financial and energy markets, it's kind of like a nerd's paradise, I would say, from that perspective.“ by Maud Texier
- “And so that's why we're also pushing very hard on advanced technologies right now. I do think through the rise of digitalization of energy and AI, you're going to see more tools and products coming from us and also the ecosystems that should help accelerate that as well.“ by Maud Texier
- “I think we're definitely in the cycle right now, and it's hard to say at which stage we are quite yet. But I think there's still a lot, like you said, a lot of hype and a lot of noise, and there's also a lot of numbers and data flying around.“ by Maud Texier
- “I think there's a lot of opportunity again. Right. And so it's really across us, Europe and other regions, electricity is going to be a massive vector for economic growth in general. And how do we work all together to again bring the right amount of capacity and grid reliability and quality as well along that to support that economic growth?“ by Maud Texier
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Episode Information
The Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
5/16/24
AI is driving up demand for electricity. How can we meet that demand with clean energy?
It has been a big theme on the Energy Gang this year: the massive additional demand for energy that could be created by data centers for artificial intelligence. It’s an emerging issue that threatens to cause new challenges for the world’s attempts to achieve net zero goals.
So it is a great opportunity for us to have on the show a representative from Google, a company that relies heavily on data centers and is at the forefront of the AI revolution. It also has some ambitious decarbonization goals: the aim is to power the company’s operations entirely with clean energy by 2030.
Maud Texier is the global director of clean energy and decarbonization development at Google. She joins Ed Crooks and Amy Myers-Jaffe to explain how she sees the path to achieving that goal by 2030. Google’s objective of 24/7 clean energy requires sourcing renewable power that aligns with its consumption patterns. That means not just buying enough renewable energy to match its usage over the course of a year: every kilowatt-hour consumed must be carbon-free. It’s a challenging goal that it driving Google, like other companies with similar objectives, to explore new ways to generate power, store energy and manage the grid.
Google is looking at or already investing in a range of innovative energy technologies, including enhanced geothermal, hydrogen, long-duration storage and advanced nuclear. Big energy users such as Google can do a lot to shape the evolution of the energy industry. But policy support is, as ever, crucial to achieving net zero goals. How is Google engaging with policymakers and regulators to help support the deployment of clean energy? New standards in the European parliament, aimed at improving energy efficiency, include mandates for data centers to report their performance. Are we moving towards an era of more stringent regulation of energy use for data centers and other large loads?
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