To date, Google has invested over $100 million in the clean energy sector.
Google.org has made investments in innovative clean technology companies, spanning a range of technologies (eSolar Inc., AltaRock Energy, Inc, Potter Drilling and others). Google.org also has a team of engineers doing research and development through the RE<C initiative aimed at creating utility-scale renewable electricity that is cheaper than coal in years, not decades. More recently, Google has made project investments that offer a solid return on investment and a potentially transformational impact on the sector:
- Pending German authority official approval, Google will invest $5 million in a large solar plant in Brandenburg, Germany. The plant once operational, should provide power for 5,000 homes in the vicinity. - A $38.8 million investment in two North Dakota wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts (MW), enough to power 55,000 homes. The wind farm uses some of the latest wind turbine technology and control systems to provide one of the lowest-cost sources of renewable energy to the local grid.
- An investment in the critical development stage of a project to build a transmission backbone off the mid-Atlantic coast to accelerate offshore wind development, with the potential to connect 6,000MW of wind, enough to serve 1.9 million households.
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