Media incorrectly report Google is abandoning renewables. In fact, the company is increasing clean energy investments. Buried at the bottom of an innocuous “spring cleaning” post on Google’s blog yesterday, the internet giant made a very important announcement: it will stop funding its Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative. … [continued]
Google’s director of Green Business Operations Rick Needham announced the Internet search and technology leader will invest $75 million to create an initial fund with Clean Power Finance that aims to install solar power systems on as many as 3,000 homes. The investment brings to over $850-million the total amount of capital Google has invested in developing and deploying clean energy
Google announced today that it is investing $280 million in a rooftop solar power company, California-based SolarCity. Included with the announcement was the short YouTube video above.
Of course, this is just the latest announcement of many demonstrating Google’s tremendous investment and belief in truly clean, renewable energy.
Google is one of the largest clean energy corporate leaders in the U.S. If we had more Googles (and fewer Facebooks or Apples), it looks like we’d have a much brighter future. Hopefully others will follow Google’s lead sooner than later on this front, or even try to one-up it. With a number of recent clean energy project announcements, I thought it might be nice to run down a list of Google’s major projects of the last year or so.
I announced yesterday that Google’s investing $5 million into a solar power project in Germany. That’s big, and it’s Google’s first cleantech investment outside the United States. But before we get too pessimistic and down about our dysfunctional political situation and how it’s limiting our cleantech growth, let’s remember that while a Tea-Party-ruined Congress can’t get much done, a number of states are supporting cleantech quite a bit on their own. One such state, as we all know, is California.
Google recently ventured outside the U.S. to put €3.5 million (~$5 million) into a 18.7-MW German solar power plant near Berlin.
