What supplies the electricity when the site needs it?
Ask whether a renewable claim covers the whole year or every hour.
A company may say a site near you runs on renewable power. A purchase can cover a full year of use without matching every hour. Ask what time period and what place the claim covers.
Servers need about the same power day and night. Solar panels make power only in daylight.
Sources: US Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy, Data center server energy use grows across the commercial building stock, May 19, 2026; US Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy, As solar capacity grows, duck curves are getting deeper in California, June 21, 2023; US Environmental Protection Agency, Green Power Markets, 24/7 Hourly Matching of Electricity, December 12, 2025.
What good looks like
- The figures are for this project. They state the time period and the matching method.
- Hourly carbon-free matching names the grid region and any gaps that remain.
- Records show the new power projects and who owns their energy certificates.
What to watch for
- A yearly renewable claim is described as clean power every hour.
- A company-wide goal is put forward as a result for the site.
- A share of power capacity is compared with a share of energy use.
Where to look
- Site electricity or emissions report A report on the site’s electricity use or its emissions.
- Utility supply agreement and power-purchase disclosures The contract to supply the site, and what the company has made public about the power it buys.
- Certificate-retirement or independent verification report Proof that energy certificates were used for this claim and cannot be claimed again, or a report by an independent checker.
Google gave two numbers for the whole company for 2024. Over the year, its match was 100%. Hour by hour, it was 66%.
Matched over the year
100%
Google calls this a renewable energy match on a global basis. It says it has kept this match every year since 2017.
Matched hour by hour
66%
Google calls this its 24/7 carbon-free energy share (“24/7 CFE”). It rose from 64% to 66% in 2024.
Percent matched, whole company, worldwide, 2024
Grid regions at 80% or more, hour by hour
9 of 20 grid regions
These are the grid regions where Google owns and runs data centers.
Measured result
Source: Google, Google 2025 Environmental Report, 2025.
The trade-off
Buying renewable power by the year can support renewable generation. It answers a different question from having carbon-free power at the time the site uses it.
Does the project’s stated clean-electricity claim use hourly matching?
- Yes
- The project’s accounting says outright that it matches use and generation hour by hour. Write down the region, the time period and the percentage actually matched.
- No
- The source says outright that this claim is matched by the year only, not by the hour.
- Not known
- The time period is not stated. Or the claim is for the whole company. Or a goal is given without a method.
Two real projects
Lighthouse — Port Washington
Port Washington, Wisconsin
Is clean power accounting for this project public, and does it clearly state the matching period?
Not knownCompany statement
Oracle’s page, current as of January 2026, says 70% of the campus’s energy “will come from zero-emission sources”. Oracle and Vantage issued an update on September 17, 2026. It says more than 50% of the power capacity “is expected to come from carbon-free energy”. Power capacity is the most power at one moment. The two figures are shares of different totals. The update says the rest of the energy “will be matched with renewable energy purchases”. It gives no time span for that match. Vantage’s campus page said the remaining energy would be matched “to achieve a 100% match every year”. That page now returns “404 page not found”. The Internet Archive holds a copy dated October 23, 2026. All three are company statements about future supply for a campus still being built. None reports a matched result for any year or any hour.
Sources: Oracle, Port Washington data center facts, January 2026; Oracle / Vantage, September 2026 Lighthouse project update, September 17, 2026; Vantage Data Centers, Lighthouse campus design and power disclosure, accessed November 10, 2026.
Meta Hyperion — Richland Parish
Richland Parish, Louisiana
Is clean power accounting for this project public, and does it clearly state the matching period?
Not knownCompany statement
Meta’s expansion announcement names power made from natural gas alongside batteries and purchased power. It also names nuclear uprates, which raise the amount of power a nuclear plant may make. It does not give a result for this project that counts clean electricity by the hour or by the year.
Source: Meta, Richland Parish expansion announcement, July 13, 2026.