Google's Data Centers Used 30.8 TWh in 2024. Electricity Rose 27% While Data Center Emissions Fell 12%

Google's 2025 Environmental Report, released in late June, covers calendar year 2024 and gives one of the most detailed public pictures of how AI-driven data center growth shows up in a hyperscaler's energy, emissions and water figures. The company's data centers consumed 30.8 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, about 95.8% of Google's total electricity use, and 27% more than in 2023. Google's total emissions under the boundary used for its 2030 net-zero goal rose 11% in 2024 to 11.5 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, a cumulative increase of 51% since its 2019 baseline year.

The largest driver of the increase was Scope 3 emissions from capital goods and sold products, which rose 38% to 6.3 million metric tons, more than half of Google's Scope 3 total. Google's emissions strategy, which the company says was validated by the Science Based Targets initiative in February 2025, calls for a 50% cut in market-based Scope 1 and 2 emissions and in Scope 3 emissions, with residual emissions to be neutralized through carbon removal.

Google signed contracts in 2024 to add about 8 gigawatts of geothermal, nuclear, solar and wind capacity to grids, more than in any previous year. The company measures progress against a goal of running on carbon-free energy every hour of every day on every grid where it operates by 2030. Grids in the Asia-Pacific region remain the biggest obstacle, according to Google's chief sustainability officer. Google says its data centers deliver about six times more computing power per unit of electricity than five years ago, a gain it attributes to cooling changes, custom AI chips and software improvements.

Efficiency gains reduce the energy needed per unit of computation, but they have not prevented total electricity use from rising rapidly, because demand for computation, particularly for AI training and inference, has grown faster. Google consumed about 8.1 billion gallons of water in 2024, mostly at data centers, up about 28% from the previous year.