![]() | This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: Several planned things mentioned in this article have been started or completed.(October 2023) |
![]() | |
Industry | Power generation |
---|---|
Founded | December 16, 2009 [1] |
Products | Renewable energy |
Parent | Alphabet Inc. |
Website | environment |
Google Energy LLC is a subsidiary company of Alphabet Inc., which was created to reduce costs of energy consumption of the Google Group, and subsequently to produce and sell clean energy. The division also allows it to take advantage of projects funded through the philanthropic Google.org.
By 2007 Google had invested a substantial amount of money in wind, solar, solar thermal, and geothermal projects, including a 1.6 MW solar installation pilot project at its headquarters. In 2010 Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable-energy project, putting up US$38.8 million for two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced that the two locations will generate 169.5 MW of power, or enough to supply 55,000 homes. The farms, which were developed by NextEra Energy Resources, will reduce fossil fuel use in the region. NextEra Energy Resources sold Google a twenty percent stake in the project in order to get funding for project development. [2] In addition, on July 30, 2010, Google Energy agreed to purchase 114 MW of Iowa wind energy from NextEra Energy at a fixed rate for 20 years. [3] [4] [5] [6] The corporation plans to primarily use the electricity for Google's data centers, but it may also be sold on the open market.
In 2010 Google Energy, together with a group of other investors, announced a plan to build the Atlantic Wind Connection, an undersea cable off the Atlantic coast to connect future offshore wind farms with on-shore transmission grids. [7]
In April 2011, Google extended its partnership with NextEra by signing a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for its Minco II Wind Energy Center. [8] As of 2011, the 100.8-megawatt wind farm is being developed in the Grady and Caddo counties near Minco. [9]
Google invested two rounds in SolarCity, $280 million in 2011 and $300 million in 2015. [10]
On September 17, 2013, the corporation announced its plan to purchase all of the electricity produced by the 240-megawatt Happy Hereford wind farm that will be located near Amarillo, Texas, US upon the completion of the farm's construction. Purchased from the wind farms owners Chermac Energy, Google Energy will sell the electricity from Happy Hereford into the wholesale market in Oklahoma, the location of one of its data centers. [11]
As of 2016 [update] , Google has power purchase agreements for 2,600 MW. [12]
Google plans to combine its DeepMind AI to optimize the production of energy from its wind farms. Wind power will always suffer from unpredictability. That limits its adoption when compared to other energy sources that can reliably deliver power at a set time. To help solve this problem, last year DeepMind started building algorithms to boost the efficacy of Google's wind farms in the US, it said in a blog post. It trained a neural network on weather forecasts and past turbine data, so it could predict power output 36 hours ahead. [13] Based on this, the model recommends how to allocate power to the grid a full day in advance. This boosted the "value" of Google's wind farms by about 20%, it claims, though it hasn't specified what form that value takes, or how it's measured. While it's only been built and tested out internally so far, it's not hard to imagine Google hoping to sell this technology to wind farm operators. [14]
In February 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FERC granted Google an authorization to buy and sell energy at market rates. [15] The order specifically states that Google Energy—a subsidiary of Google—holds the rights "for the sale of energy, capacity, and ancillary services at market-based rates", but acknowledges that neither Google Energy nor its affiliates "own or control any generation or transmission" facilities. [16]
Southern California Edison (SCE), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electric utility company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of approximately 50,000 square miles.
Constellation Energy Corporation is an American energy company headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The company provides electric power, natural gas, and energy management services. It has approximately two million customers across the continental United States.
Iberdrola, S.A. is a Spanish multinational electric utility company based in Bilbao, Spain. It has around 40,000 employees and serves around 30 million customers.
Making up over 62% of the state's generated electricity in 2022, wind power is the largest source of electricity generation in Iowa. In 2020, over 34 billion kWh of electrical energy was generated by wind power. As of 2022, Iowa has over 12,200 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity with over 6,000 wind turbines, ranking second and third in the nation below Texas respectively.
EDP Renewables North America and its subsidiaries develop, construct, own, and operate wind farms and solar parks throughout North America.
The U.S. state of Oregon has large wind energy resources. Many projects have been completed, most of them in rural Eastern Oregon and near the Columbia River Gorge. Wind power accounted for 12.1% of the electricity generated in Oregon in 2016.
New Jersey has over 4,700 MW of installed solar power capacity as of January 2024, which provides more than 7% of the state's electricity consumption. The's state's growth of solar power is aided by a renewable portfolio standard that requires that 22.5% of New Jersey's electricity come from renewable resources by 2021 and 50% by 2030, by incentives provided for generation of solar power, and by one of the most favorable net metering standards in the country, allowing customers of any size array to use net metering, although generation may not exceed annual demand. As of 2018, New Jersey has the sixth-largest installed solar capacity of all U.S. states and the largest installed solar capacity of the Northeastern States.
The Capricorn Ridge Wind Farm is located in Sterling and Coke counties, Texas. The wind farm does not create any air and water pollution to the surrounding counties. It is a 662.5 MW wind farm, with 342 GE 1.5 MW wind turbines and 65 2.3 MW Siemens turbines that are capable of generating enough electricity for more than 220,000 homes. With all four phases combined, there should be over 400 turbines after the project commissioned in 2007. The wind farm is built, owned and operated by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, the U.S.' largest wind energy generator who is also known for generating electricity using natural gas, oil solar, wind and nuclear. This company, together with its subsidiaries owns, operates, develops, constructs and manages electricity and energy generating facilities in not only the U.S. but also in Canada and Spain. The project is part owned by San Antonio-based Sullivan Trillian Fund Private Equity. Its property Offtaker is Energy Market- ERCOT.
NextEra Energy Resources, LLC (NEER) is a wholesale electricity supplier based in Juno Beach, Florida. NEER is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, a Fortune 200 company. Prior to 2009, NextEra Energy Resources was known as FPL Energy.
EDF Renewables is a wholly owned subsidiary of the French utility EDF Group, specializing in renewable energy production. As an integrated operator, the Group develops and finances the construction of renewable energy facilities, and manages operations and maintenance for its own account and for third parties.
As of 2019, renewable energy in Morocco covered 35% of the country’s electricity needs.
In 2016, Arizona had 268 megawatts (MW) of wind powered electricity generating capacity, producing 0.5% of in-state generated electricity.
The Blythe Mesa Solar Power Project, also known as the Blythe Solar Energy Center, is a 235 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power plant near the city of Blythe in Riverside County, California. It occupies about 2,000 acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Mojave Desert. The construction uses CdTe thin film panels from the U.S. firm First Solar, and the majority of the output is being sold to Kaiser Permanente and Southern California Edison under 20-year power purchase agreements.
The US state of Colorado has vast wind energy resources and the installed electricity capacity and generation from wind power in Colorado has been growing significantly in recent years. The growth has been sustained due to a combination of falling costs, continuing federal incentives, and the state's aggressive renewable portfolio standard that requires 30% of the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.
Solar power in Florida has been increasing, as the cost of solar power systems using photovoltaics (PV) has decreased in recent years. Florida has low electricity costs compared with other states, which makes individual solar investment less attractive. Florida ranks ninth nationally in solar resource strength according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and tenth in solar generation by the Solar Energy Industries Association.
The U.S. State of Oklahoma has high potential capacity for wind power in the western half of the state. In 2021, Oklahoma's installed wind generation capacity was almost 10,500 megawatts, supplying over 40% of the state's generated electricity and 85% of Oklahoma's total generating capacity from all renewable resources.
The San Isabel Solar Energy Center is a 30 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station in Las Animas County, Colorado located about 20 miles north of the city of Trinidad. The electricity is being sold to Tri-State Generation and Transmission under a 25-year power purchase agreement. It is the second solar project, following the Cimarron Solar Facility in year 2010, to be added to the utility cooperative's renewables portfolio.
The Enterprise Solar Farm is an 80 MWAC (105 MWp) photovoltaic power station located about 25 miles west of Cedar City, Utah in Iron County. The project was developed by SunEdison, built by Mortenson Construction, and commissioned in September 2016. The electricity is being sold under a 20-year power purchase agreement to Rocky Mountain Power which serves customers in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.
ACEN Corporation, formerly AC Energy, is the energy firm under the Ayala Group. The company has over 4,000 MW of attributable capacity in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and Australia, with a renewable share of 98% which is among the highest in the region.
Enel North America is an American company headquartered in Andover, MA, United States. One of the renewable energy operators in North America, it was formed as a subsidiary of the global utility Enel S.p.A. in 2000. It has operations in the United States and Canada through its renewables and energy services businesses, with a portfolio including over 9.6 GW of renewable capacity, 160,000 EV charging stations, 4.7 GW of demand response capacity and 14 utility-scale battery energy storage systems, totaling 1,416 MWh of capacity under construction or in operation. It serves a customer base of over 4,500 businesses, utilities, and cities in North America.