Google AI to help 300M Indian rooftops go solar
What's the story
Google has announced five new sustainability and clean-energy initiatives in India. The projects leverage artificial intelligence (AI), geospatial data, and infrastructure investments to help the country meet its climate goals. The initiatives focus on rooftop solar, renewable energy, climate-smart farming, climate technology research, and support for climate-tech start-ups.
Solar expansion
Expanding rooftop solar access
As part of its Earth AI platform, Google is expanding its Solar API to provide rooftop solar insights for over 300 million buildings in India.
The technology allows installers to remotely assess a home's solar potential, saving time and costs on system designs and customer proposals.
Platforms like Solar Ladder and OpenSolar are using this data to automate 3D layouts, consider parapet and water-tank clearances, and create mobile proposals during initial customer meetings.
Solar partnership
Renewable energy procurement
Google has inked a long-term agreement with ReNew Power for a 150MW solar project in Rajasthan.
The tech giant will get the environmental attributes of the clean electricity generated and use them to mitigate electricity-related emissions across its value chain.
This is Google's second Scope 3-focused solar project in India, taking its contracted capacity with ReNew to 300MW of new solar generation capacity on India's national grid.
Emission reduction
Climate-smart farming
Google and Mitti Labs are collaborating on a project to help smallholder rice farmers in Telangana adopt Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD).
The method reduces irrigation demand and conserves water while participating farmers get direct payments.
The project aims to mitigate nearly three million tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) over 20 years under GWP20, equivalent to one million tons under GWP100.
Tech support
Supporting climate-tech start-ups
Google's Centre for Climate Technology, launched in February with the Government of India's Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, has selected three inaugural grant recipients for green workforce training and low-carbon construction materials.
The center has also added water stewardship and waste and circularity as new focus areas through the government's Manthan Platform.
Google is also supporting four Indian start-ups through its first-ever DeepMind Accelerator: AI for the Planet program.