Google Invests $100 Million in World's Largest Wind Farm

Google has invested in yet another green energy project, this time pouring in $100 million in a wind farm site in Oregon. When completed, the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm is expected to be the largest such project in the world. This is Google's second big investment in green energy in the past few weeks.

"We recently invested approximately $100 million in the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm, anticipated to be the largest wind farm in the world," Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations at Google, announced.

"Shepherds Flat is currently under construction near windy Arlington, Ore., and when completed in 2012 will produce 845 MW of energy. That’s a lot of wind—enough to power more than 235,000 homes," he added.

The investment, again, comes from Google's Green Business Operations which, aptly enough, handles the company's involvement with clean energy and related projects. Google wants to power its operations with clean energy, the main reason behind its interest in these projects.

Very recently, Google announced a similar investment in Brightsource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, an advanced, large scale solar energy project.

While the sums involved are fairly large, $100 million now, $168 million at Ivanpah, Google is not the biggest investor in any of the projects, it just helps out to get the ball rolling. Still, at this point, Google is involved with both the largest wind farm and the largest solar energy projects in the world.

"We look forward to joining a project with strong experienced partners such as the developer, Caithness Energy, and GE, which is an early investor in Shepherds Flat as well as the turbine manufacturer and operations and maintenance supplier," Google listed some of the other companies involved with the Shepherds Flat project.

Google was joined by Sumitomo Corporation of America and Tyr Energy, a subsidiary of ITOCHU Corporation, in this round of investment. Google has now invested about $350 million in green energy projects.