WebProNews

Tag: Clean Energy

  • Apple Puts $848M into Solar Farm, the Current Largest Commercial Clean Energy Deal

    Apple has announced plans to construct a giant solar farm that it says will power all of its California operations – and then some.

    Apple is partnering with First Solar, the company behind Monterey County’s California Flats Solar Project. The company is investing $848 million in the project, which will see construction of a 1,300-acre solar farm in the area. First Solar’s entire California Flats Solar Project is about 2,900 acres.

    Apple will receive 130 megawatts from the deal, which is a 25-year agreement.

    “Apple is leading the way in addressing climate change by showing how large companies can serve their operations with 100 percent clean, renewable energy,” said Joe Kishkill, Chief Commercial Officer for First Solar. “Apple’s commitment was instrumental in making this project possible and will significantly increase the supply of solar power in California. Over time, the renewable energy from California Flats will provide cost savings over alternative sources of energy as well as substantially lower environmental impact.”

    According to Apple, the power generated from these new panels will power its new headquarters (the “Spaceship”), as well as a data center and its 50+ retail stores across the state. The power generated from the new solar farm has the ability to power around 50,000 homes.

    Speaking at a conference Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said “we know at Apple that climate change is real. The time for talk has passed and the time for action is now.”

    The new solar farm is expected to be completed by the end of 2016. First Solar says that it is “the largest agreement in the industry to provide clean energy to a commercial end user.”

    Image via First Solar, Twitter

  • Climate Change Presents Risk to US Business

    In a nonpartisan study released by the Risky Business Project, leading economic and environmental figures have assessed the monetary threat that climate change proposes to business in the United States. The findings are not optimistic.

    The study, led by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and former hedge fund manager Thomas F. Steyer, used analysis and calculations conducted by the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm, and Risk Management Solutions, a company which uses catastrophe-modeling to predict risks to insurance companies and other corporations.

    When one looks at the numbers published by the study, one can see why the report is being taken so seriously:

    — Rises in the sea level will put somewhere between $66 billion and $106 billion worth of property along the eastern coast below sea level by 2050, with that number increasing to $507 billion by 2100

    — Drastic increases in temperatures in the South will bring 27 to 50 extra days of 95+ degree temperatures, resulting in at least a three percent decrease in labor productivity of outside workers, along with a 19 percent decrease in crop yields from the Midwest

    — The extra energy needed to power air conditioning due to the rise in temperatures will cost the United States $12 billion per year and would necessitate the construction of 95 gigawatts of generation capacity, the equivalent of 200 coal or natural gas power plants.

    The sponsors of the report recently met with President Obama at the White House to discuss what can be done to incentivize US businesses to adopt greener environmental policies. Those backing the study believe that a carbon emissions tax is the way to force US businesses to invest in clean energy, something many Republicans have spoken out against in the past.

    “Every year that goes by without a comprehensive public and private sector response to climate change is a year that locks in future climate events that will have a far more devastating effect on our local, regional, and national economies,” states the report.

    Three weeks ago, President Obama and the EPA ordered power plants to reduce their carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030, putting the levels at pre-2005 numbers.

    Image via YouTube

  • American Attitudes Toward Clean Energy Softening

    As renewable and clean energies have begun to proliferate across the globe, consumer attitudes toward different energy types have been a bit unpredictable. In recent years, American opinions of new and different energy-generating technologies have been dropping slightly.

    Now, market research firm Navigant Research has found that U.S. Adults are coming around on clean energy, if only for the most established technologies.

    The firm surveyed over 1,000 U.S. adults on their opinions of 10 clean energy technologies and found that opinions have begun returning to favorable levels. Overall those surveyed had a 51% favorability rating for the 10 technologies combined, the highest Navigant has measured since 2010, when favorability ratings began dipping.

    More specifically the survey found that opinions had softened on over half of the 10 technologies, and especially for solar and wind-generated power. The one technology that still saw a decline in favorability is nuclear power, which could still be suffering from the stigma of the Fukushima Daiichi incident in 2011. Navigant interprets its survey results to mean that Americans are more favorable toward more “established” clean energy technologies.

    “Between 2009 and 2012, there were steady declines in favorability for some clean energy concepts, particularly the most favorable concepts, such as solar energy, wind energy, and hybrid and electric vehicles,” said Clint Wheelock, managing director at Navigant Research. “This year saw statistically significant increases in favorability for seven of the 10 concepts, and a decline for only one – nuclear power.”

  • Google Acquires Wind Energy Company Makani Power

    Back in 2007, Google announced that it would be putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a “strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal.”

    This included eSolar and Makani Power. News is out today that Google has now acquired the latter. Brad Stone at BusinessWeek writes:

    Last February, Astro Teller, the director of Google’s (GOOG) secretive research lab, Google X, went to seek approval from Chief Executive Officer Larry Page for an unlikely acquisition. Teller was proposing that Google buy Makani Power, a startup that develops wind turbines mounted on unmanned, fixed-wing aircraft tethered to the ground like a kite. The startup, Teller told Page, was seeing promising results, and, he added proudly, its prototypes had survived all recent tests intact.

    Page approved Google X’s acquisition of Makani, which was being completed for an undisclosed amount at press time. He also had a demand. “He said we could have the budget and the people to go do this,” Teller says, “but that we had to make sure to crash at least five of the devices in the near future.”

    According to TechCrunch, Google invested $10 million in Makani Power in 2006 and another $5 million in 2008. Frederic Lardinois shares a statement from Teller:

    Creating clean energy is one of the most pressing issues facing the world, and Google for years has been interested in helping to solve this problem. Makani Power’s technology has opened the door to a radical new approach to wind energy. They’ve turned a technology that today involves hundreds of tons of steel and precious open space into a problem that can be solved with really intelligent software. We’re looking forward to bringing them into Google[x].

    Makani Power has the following statement up on its site:

    We are happy to announce that Makani Power is being acquired by Google. This formalizes a long and productive relationship between our two companies, and will provide Makani with the resources to accelerate our work to make wind energy cost competitive with fossil fuels. The timing couldn’t be better, as we completed the first ever autonomous all-modes flight with our Wing 7 prototype last week. Makani could not have reached this point without the support of the US Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program and the hard work of our talented team, past and present. We look forward to working with our new colleagues at Google[x] to make airborne wind a cost-effective reality.

    Earlier this year, Google put $200 million into a wind farm in Texas.

  • Google Puts $200 Million Into Texas Wind Project

    Google has been investing in clean energy for years, and today, the company announced that it has made a $200 million equity investment in a wind farm in west Texas, which the company says generates enough energy to power over 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,” explains Google Corporate Finance Senior Manager Kojo Ako-Asare. “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,” adds Ako-Asare. “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.”

    The company also put out this infographic about its investments in clean energy:

    Google Clean Energy

    Google has made over 10 renewable energy investments since 2010. In September, the company announced an agreement with the Grand River Damn Authority to green the energy supply to its Oklahoma data center, including 48 MW of wind energy from the Canadian Hills Wind Project in Oklahoma.

  • Google Invests Over $850 Million in Clean Energy

    Google Invests Over $850 Million in Clean Energy

    Google announced today that it is investing $75 million in a fund with Clean Power Finance to help up to 3,000 homeowners go solar, bringing the company’s total investment in clean energy to $850 million.

    “As we said when we made our first residential solar investment, we think it makes a lot of sense to use solar photovoltaic (PV) technology—rooftop solar panels—to generate electricity right where you need it at home,” says Google Director of Green Business Operations Rick Needham. “It greens our energy mix by using existing roof space while avoiding transmission constraints, and it can be cheaper than drawing electricity from the traditional grid.”

    “Purchasing a solar system is a major home improvement, but the upfront cost has historically been one of the biggest barriers for homeowners,” Needham adds. “Solar installers across the country don’t always have the resources to find financing for customers, or the capital to provide it themselves. And for investors like Google, banks and others, it can be difficult to enter a fragmented solar market with many companies, and get connected to individual homeowners.”

    Clean Power Finance has an open platform to connect installers and investors (Google in this case) to help homeowners finance the changes.

    “Solar installers sign up with Clean Power Finance to get access to the company’s comprehensive sales solutions, including consumer financing from investors, like the Google fund,” explains Needham. “This enables installers to sell more systems and grow their business. The installer builds the system, the investor (in this case, Google) owns it, and homeowners pay a monthly payment for the system, at a price that’s often less than paying for energy from the grid. Maintenance and performance are taken care of by Clean Power Finance and its network of installers.”

    You can see more about Google’s various investments in clean energy here. They include, in addition to the Clean Power Finance investment, $280 in SolarCity (solar for residential rooftops), $10 million in Brightsource (solar), a 37.5% equity stake in Atlantic Wind Connection, $157 million in Alta Wind Energy Center, $100 million into Shepherd’s Flat (wind farm), $38.8 million into Peace Garden wind farms, and about $5 million in Photovoltaics (solar).

    Google has had solar panels on its own headquarters since 2007.