A press release from Google yesterday outlines a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources. The overall goal of the program is to drive down the cost of renewable energy sources below the price of electricity produced from coal.
It’s great to see Google flex their considerable economic muscle in a green direction. The ambitious declaration that they want to generate renewable electricity at a “globally significant scale,” is exciting.
Larry Page states in the release, “With talented technologists, great partners and significant investments, we hope to rapidly push forward. Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades.” (One gigawatt can power a city the size of San Francisco.)
This isn’t Google’s first foray into green practices. They’ve been working on green computing and sustainable energy source initiative that include:
- Developing cutting-edge energy efficiency technology to power and cool its data centers in the U.S. and around the world.
- Generating electricity for its Mountain View campus from a 1.6 Megawatt corporate solar panel installation, one of the largest in the U.S.
- Accelerating development and adoption of plug-in vehicles through the RechargeIT initiative, including a $10 million request for investment proposals (http://www.google.org/recharge/)
- Joining with other industry leaders in 2007 to form the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a consortium that advocates the design and use of more energy-efficient computers and servers (http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/).
- Working on policies that encourage renewable energy development and deployment, such as a U.S. Renewable Energy Standard, through Google.org.
It’s great to see this thought leadership, and a clear connection between economic benefits and sustainable practices.
