Google Makes 13th Clean Energy Investment In 3 Years

Google are ever growing into new markets, but one thing the company seems set to really make advances with it power usage. Turning a company the size of Google into a green one isn’t easy, but with 13 projects put into place over the last three years they’re certainly making a sizeable effort and investment.

Their latest venture is set to be a large solar panel farm, it will be built in the Imperial County in California, and Google are investing a whopping $103 million into the project.

The new solar farm, to be known as Mount Signal Solar, will provide around 365.7 MW of power that will provide enough juice to 80,000 homes. Utility San Diego Gas & Electric will be buying all the power from Mount Signal Solar, which will be operated by Silver Ridge Power.

This is just the latest green move that Google has made, who have made big steps in off setting the power that is used by its massive data centres. Instead of directly powering their centres, Google has been investing in project like the solar farm that benefit their investors, but still provide a commitment to clean power. It’s a win win situation that sees Google and their investors turn a profit, but still helps reduce their overall carbon footprint.

With the 13 projects now in place from Google they’re producing enough clean energy to power 500,000 (U.S.) homes and they’ve invested around $1 billion in doing so.  I doubt California will be the last place to benefit from Google’s clean energy plans.

Thank you Gigaom for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of 8minutenergy.com