The internet is growing fast, and so is demand for our services, from search to Gmail and YouTube. In order to keep up with this growth, in December 2020 we opened a new data center in Middenmeer, Netherlands, after an investment of €500 million. Combined with our data center in Eemshaven, Groningen, this brings our total Netherlands data center investment to €2.5 billion.

Our Middenmeer data center creates jobs for over 130 people in a variety of full-time and external supplier roles, including IT specialists, engineers, security guards, catering staff, and facility managers.

Since 2017, we’ve been matching all of our annual electricity consumption with 100 percent renewable energy, and in 2020, we committed to running all our data centers and campuses on carbon-free energy 24/7 by 2030. To help achieve this in the Netherlands, Google has agreements with wind farms in Delfzijl and Zeeland (Krammer and Bouwdokken) and a solar energy park in Delfzijl Sunport for the purchase of renewable energy for the data center.