Pushing our energy performance even higher with ISO 50001 certification

It’s no secret that at Google we’re obsessed with building energy efficient data centers. Our facilities use 50% less energy than most other data centers, and we’re constantly pushing ourselves to be even more efficient with the energy we use. As part of that effort we’ve developed a comprehensive energy management system (EnMS), and we’re proud to announce that we’re the first company in North America to obtain a multi-site ISO 50001 certification for that system, covering our corporate data center operations and six U.S. data centers.

Much like the environmental and workforce safety management certifications we’ve received, ISO 50001 is built around a “plan-do-check-act” concept. This concept ensures we have a strong energy policy, implement sound processes that strengthen our EnMS, build a robust auditing program, continually monitor, assess, and respond to our energy efficiency results, while always working on ways to make things even better. Based on the requirements in the standard, Google developed an EnMS that makes sense for our energy culture - this means continuously challenging energy performance goals, continuing to improve upon our energy efficient data center designs, and developing progressive monitoring systems, to name a few.

Our data centers in the following U.S. locations have received the ISO 50001 certification:

• The Dalles, Oregon
• Council Bluffs, Iowa
• Mayes County, Oklahoma
• Lenoir, North Carolina
• Berkeley County, South Carolina
• Douglas County, Georgia

We plan to expand our current certification to include our European data centers in the coming months.

Posted by Joe Kava, VP, Data centers