Data Centers Help Fuel the Solar-Energy Boom

04/19/23 • 14 min

A solar-centric world is coming. Solar generates just over 3% of the world's electricity. By the middle of the century, it could make up nearly 40% of global electricity consumption.

That growth is made possible by sophisticated manufacturing, maturing business models, and fast-dropping costs. It’s also increasingly enabled by artificial intelligence – and the data centers that power it.

Samuel Adeyemo is the co-founder of Aurora Solar, a company using AI to quickly model and execute millions of rooftop solar projects. Aurora partners with Google’s Project Sunroof to integrate vast geospatial data sets into the software.

As the digital tools behind solar get more sophisticated, data centers have the potential to be the backbone of the clean energy economy.

Learn how Project Sunroof is enabling more solar. To discover how data centers are supporting clean energy around the globe, check out Google's 24/7 carbon-free energy mission.

A solar-centric world is coming. Solar generates just over 3% of the world's electricity. By the middle of the century, it could make up nearly 40% of global electricity consumption.

As the digital tools behind solar get more sophisticated, data centers have the potential to be the backbone of the clean energy economy.

Learn how Project Sunroof is enabling more solar. To discover how data centers are supporting clean energy around the globe, check out Google's 24/7 carbon-free energy mission.

Previous Episode

From Furniture to Fiber, a Town Changed

Lenoir, North Carolina, was once a global furniture manufacturing hub. For Rachel Scercy, the furniture industry was the center of her family life. And then the jobs vanished in the 1990s.

Today, communities like Lenoir are often seen as great sites for data centers because of their strong industrial histories. In 2007, Google built a $1.2 billion data center a mile outside of Lenoir, creating over a thousand jobs to date – hundreds in construction, and hundreds of permanent jobs in operations. Since then, the region has attracted more data centers from other top tech, retail, and entertainment companies.

Intimately experienced with the ups and downs of Lenoir's economic transformation, Rachel is part of Lenoir's new generation of workers who are employed at a data center rather than in the furniture industry.

Learn more

about career opportunities and Google’s investments in communities like Lenoir.

Next Episode

From Trauma to Triumph

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Note: this episode contains references to sexual assault. Please take care while listening.

Data centers are the latest in a long list of big projects that Dave Moody has tackled over three decades running a construction company. But as an aspiring Black architect, he didn’t know if he’d ever have the same opportunities as his white counterparts.

Racial disparities didn’t stop him. Dave started with a single $88,000 contract in the late 1980s and grew his company, CD Moody Construction, to build museums, stadiums, and airport terminals.

As his business expanded, Dave had to face a personal trauma head-on – reckoning with the memories of childhood sexual abuse – and learn to live his life as a healed person, not just a survivor. That allowed him to seize on new opportunities, like when Google came looking for help with data center construction in Georgia. It also allowed him to become a model and mentor for others.

Learn more about Google’s supplier diversity program. After you listen to the episode, watch a short documentary film about Dave and his journey here.