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A proud partner in the Workplace Charging Challenge
1/31/13
At Google, we believe that plug-in vehicles are game-changers in the effort to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation, improve air quality, and increase the adoption of intermittent renewable energy sources. That’s why we’re excited to join the U.S. Department of Energy’s
Workplace Charging Challenge
, an initiative to increase the number of employers offering workplace charging by tenfold in five years.
Google has been dedicated to the
promise of electric vehicles
since 2007, when we outfitted a small fleet of Priuses and Escape Hybrids with homegrown dataloggers and installed an EV solar carport at our HQ in Mountain View. Our employees eagerly adopted the new technology, and we soon launched a corporate carshare program, called
GFleet
. GFleet provides Googlers with a low-carbon transportation option once they get to the office using alternative transportation (for instance, the Google shuttle, walking, biking, or carpooling). To date Googlers have driven GFleet vehicles over a quarter of a million miles.
To support GFleet and encourage Googlers to buy their own plug-ins, Google offers free on campus charging in Mountain View and eight additional office locations in the U.S. Now with more than 300 stations across the country, we’ve built the largest corporate charging infrastructure in the country.
We’re delighted to help drive progress in this space, and invite others to join the charge towards more EV infrastructure, cleaner air, and a sustainable future.
Posted by Rolf Schreiber, Technical Program Manager, Electric Transportation
Paving a path to intelligent energy use
1/14/13
One of the best parts about working at Google is the chance to use the Internet and digital technology to help us all manage energy better. We’ve seen big changes in recent years to the way we watch TV, use phones, read and listen to music, yet how we use electricity hasn’t changed much in decades.
What if instead of a monthly bill we had access to more real-time and actionable information about our electricity consumption? What if our appliances, air conditioners, and lights adjusted automatically to use energy more efficiently and save money? If we did this in every home it would help improve the reliability of the grid and save billions of dollars.
Technology like
smart meters
and
programmable thermostats
make it possible to do this today. The challenge is that the rules governing electricity distribution were written for last century’s grid. That’s why
Google.org
is giving a $2.65M grant to the
Energy Foundation
to support policy reforms that will lead to more intelligent energy use. The effort will focus on three fundamental areas:
Smarter electricity rates that encourage consumers to be more efficient, shift their electricity use to times when it’s cheaper and produce their own on-site energy;
Access to electricity markets for consumers and other businesses so they can be compensated for cutting energy use at key times; and
Open data policies that give customers access to their own energy data, which they can use or share with third parties they select, promoting better energy management tools and services.
These policy reforms, coupled with the new technologies now being deployed on a large scale, can empower consumers to make smarter energy choices, improve real-time management of the electricity grid, and help facilitate more renewable energy all while lowering overall costs.
We hope this grant will help catalyze change and look forward to seeing progress in the years to come.
Posted by Michael Terrell, Senior Policy Counsel, Energy & Sustainability
A wind investment deep in the heart of Texas
1/9/13
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
In late December, while most of us were busy wrapping presents, our Treasury team was tying a bow on our most recent
renewable energy deal
: an approximately $200 million equity investment in a wind farm in west Texas that generates enough energy to power more than 60,000 average U.S. homes.
Spinning Spur Wind Project is located in Oldham County, a wide open, windy section of the Texas Panhandle located about 35 miles from Amarillo. The 161 megawatt facility was built by renewable energy developer EDF Renewable Energy, a veteran in the industry that has overseen more than 50 other clean energy projects. Spinning Spur’s 70 2.3 MW Siemens turbines started spinning full time just before the end of the year, and the energy they create has been contracted to SPS, a utility that primarily serves Texas and New Mexico.
We look for projects like Spinning Spur because, in addition to creating more renewable energy and strengthening the local economy, they also make for smart investments: they offer attractive returns relative to the risks and allow us to invest in a broad range of assets. We’re also proud to be the first investor in an EDF Renewable Energy project that is not a financial institution, as we believe that corporations can be an important new source of capital for the renewable energy sector.
Spinning Spur joins
10 other renewable energy investments
we’ve made since 2010, several of which hit significant milestones in the past year:
The
Atlantic Wind Connection
received permission to begin permitting, an important step in advancing the construction of the United States’ first offshore backbone electric transmission system (more in this
new video
).
Shepherds Flat
, one of the world’s largest wind farms with a capacity of 845 MW, became fully operational in October.
The
Ivanpah
project, which is more than 75 percent complete and employs 2,000+ people, recently installed its 100,000th heliostat, a kind of mirror (more in this
new video
).
Just yesterday
(PDF), the fourth and final phase of Recurrent Energy's 88MW solar installation in Sacramento County, Calif., reached commercial operation.
Altogether, the renewable energy projects we’ve invested in are capable of generating 2 gigawatts of power. To give a better sense of what that really means, we came up with some comparisons (click to enlarge):
Here’s to a clean, renewable 2013!
Posted by Kojo Ako-Asare, Senior Manager, Corporate Finance
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