> Is it just a coincidence that the Eemshaven (eu-west4) datacenter is close to a coal plant then?

Presumably, since:

"Our data center in Eemshaven was the first to be powered by 100% renewable energy from day one."

https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/eemshaven...

I appreciate them buying credits, but as nice as those windmills and solar panels are, when the sun doesn't shine, and the wind doesn't blow, what gets burned is coal. Anyway I suppose that's more a policy issue of The Netherlands, I think it's quite shameful we still have coal plants. Those credits hide the real cost of renewable energy.

I'm not sure - they say the data center is "the first Google datacenter to be powered by 100% renewable energy from day one."

https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/dutch...

And they seem pretty serious about removing non-renewables altogether.

https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-sustainability.appspot.c...