Google Signs On To Repower Iconic Bay Area Wind Farm
Google has signed a long-term power purchase agreement with NextEra Energy Resources to acquire the energy generated by California’s Altamont Pass wind farm to power its North Bayshore campus in Mountain View.
The power purchase agreement (PPA) is not the first time Google is entering into agreements for clean energy, however, it is the first time that it has done so for one of their offices.
The investment will pour money into the wind farm to purchase new wind turbines that will allow the apparently iconic wind farm generate 43 MW of clean energy.
“We think this project is especially cool because back in the 1980’s, the golden hills of Altamont Pass were an early test bed for the first large-scale wind power technology in the US,” said Google’s David Radcliffe, VP, Real Estate and Workplace Services.
“We’ve been blown away (pun intended :)) by how far turbine technology has come since then. Once the installation is complete, and the 370 legacy turbines are replaced, it will take just 24 new ones to generate as much power as our campus uses in a year. Talk about doing more with less.”
Google has already been busy this year, after 2014 brought its wind contracts up to 1,040 MW. It finished off 2014 announcing that its new €600 million data center in Eemshaven in the Netherlands will be powered entirely by renewable energy, after signing a 10-year PPA with Dutch power company Eneco to provide 100% renewable energy from the first day of the data center’s operation.
Moving into 2015, and the internet megalith signed its 18th clean energy investment in January of this year, backing a 104 MW solar power plant being built in Utah.
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