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Renewable Energy News

MONDAY 11 APRIL, 2011 |

Google Buys A Stake In German Solar Farm

by Energy Matters

Search engine giant Google has further boosted its green street-cred with a major investment in a solar farm in Brandenburg, Germany.

According to Capital Stage AG, Hamburg; Google has acquired a 49% stake in the solar electricity generation facility. The solar panel based plant is situated on 47 acres of land, has a capacity of 18.4MW and is one of the largest solar farms to be constructed during 2010.

"Google sees its participation as an important contribution to promoting climate-friendly energy - but also as a solid financial investment. This 'double dividend' makes investments in renewable energy particularly attractive, " said Google's Clean Energy Advocacy Manager, Benjamin Kott.

Google states it has invested over $100 million in the clean energy sector so far and has a team of engineers researching the creation of utility-scale renewable electricity generation that is cheaper than coal.

Among the external projects the company has invested in are two North Dakota wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts (MW), enough to power 55,000 homes. Google has also invested in a transmission backbone off the mid-Atlantic coast to in relation to offshore wind development, which will have the potential to support 6,000MW of wind power generation, enough to serve 1.9 million households. In July last year, Google announced a purchase agreement with a 114 megawatt wind farm in Iowa.

The company is also a supporter of Bloom Box fuel cell technology and took delivery of four 100kW Bloom Energy Servers in 2010. Other measures the company has taken to create more energy efficient data centers has seen its server farms use 50% less energy than typical facilities.

In 2007, Google installed what was the largest U.S. corporate solar installation at the time at its Mountain View, California headquarters. The rooftop solar array generates 1.6 megawatts of solar electricity, enough to supply the needs of approximately 1,000 California homes.