14 DAY TRIAL // Google has been investing in alternative energy and looking at ways it can diversify its energy sources and bring down its carbon footprint. Its efforts, though, have been on a relatively small scale. Not anymore, the company has announced that it has invested $38.8 million in a large-scale wind farm project. It is the first of its kind for Google and the company may use the extra energy to power, at least partially, its many data centers.
“On Friday we made our first direct investment in a utility-scale renewable energy project — two wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to power more than 55,000 homes,” Rick Needham, Green Business operations manager at Google, wrote.
“These wind farms, developed by NextEra Energy Resources, harness power from one of the world’s richest wind resources in the North Dakota plains and use existing transmission capacity to deliver clean energy to the region, reducing the use of fossil fuels. Through this $38.8 million investment, we’re aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy — in a way that makes good business sense, too,” he added.
The wind-farm project uses the modern wind turbine technology and Google says it provides one of the cheapest ‘clean’ energies out there. The project has just secured $190 million in total funding. It’s not Google’s first foray into alternative energy, though. It uses solar power and also fuel cell generators from Bloom Energy at its Googleplex headquarters. Recently, it has been granted a license to transact electricity as a wholesaler.
It has also invested in a couple of startups focusing on green energy, eSolar and AltaRock. Interestingly, Google didn’t make the investment through its venture capital arm, which it uses for offbeat projects, or through its philanthropic arm, Google.org, which manages most of its green investments. Instead, the funding came from Google directly. The company had some $26.5 billion in cash at the last count.