Australia has abundant sunshine and wind, and could it also hold vast reserves of clean energy deep underground? Geothermal energy, the Earth’s natural heat, is a clean, round-the-clock, stable energy source that can help heat and cool buildings, support agriculture and provide reliable electricity, while also reducing carbon emissions.
To achieve our goal of operating our global data centers and office campuses on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030, we are working to accelerate the next generation of technologies, including geothermal, that can help Google – and the world – meet electricity demand sustainably and reliably.
Today, as part of the Digital Future Initiative, we’re announcing a partnership with the University of Newcastle and its research institute Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER) to conduct new research into the development of geothermal energy in Australia.
This new research initiative builds on our efforts to help develop and scale geothermal technologies globally. In 2021, we partnered with Fervo Energy in the US on the world’s first corporate agreement to develop an enhanced geothermal power project, which now supplies clean energy to the grid that serves our Nevada data centres. We’re also working with Project Innerspace on GeoMap™, a free online tool that provides essential subsurface data and analytics for assessing geothermal potential worldwide.