14 DAY TRIAL // One of the biggest hurdles for installing solar panels at home has been the prohibitive up-front cost. While the cost offset by the savings on the energy bill over a period of time, many individuals can't afford to make such a big investment.
But Google is working to change that. It is now investing $75 million, 55 Million Euro, in a fund that will help finance the cost of deploying solar panels for homes.
While Google may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about solar power and green energy in general, it's an active player and investor in the area.
"This morning... I announced a new $75 million investment to create an initial fund with Clean Power Finance that will help up to 3,000 homeowners go solar," Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations at Google, wrote.
"This is our second investment in residential solar, and we’ve now invested more than $850 million overall to develop and deploy clean energy," he said.
Clean Power Finance provides services and help to solar panel installers, which are many in the US. It is now creating a fund which will connect investors, like Google in this case, to installers.
The idea is to provide the money needed to install the panels on a customer's home. The money comes from the investor, Google, who then owns the solar panels.
The homeowners then pay a fixed monthly fee until they pay up for the installation and the hardware which they then get to own.
Google has already invested in a similar company, SolarCity, which also provides ways of offsetting the initial price. That time around, Google invested $280 million, 208 million Euro, its biggest investment in renewable energy to date.
The company has made a string of huge investments, this year in particular, in the green energy sector. Some have been to its own gain, to make it easier to purchase green energy for its data centers, but some have been of a more general interest.