GooglePlex Solar Panels - Aerial View
All those hardware must use a lot of electricity (indeed, Googleville data center is calculated to require about 103 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 82,000 homes or a city the size of Tacoma, Washington), but just how much energy do you use when you perform a Google search?
Google calculated that it uses about 1 kJ (0.0003 kWh) of energy to answer the average search query. It’s so efficient that your PC will likely use more energy in the time it takes to do a Google search.
To offset its electricity consumption, Google even installed 1.6MW solar panels on the rooftops of the Googleplex. A total of 9,212 solar panels generate 4,475 kWh daily, the equivalent of about the amount of electricity used by 1,000 California homes.
