Google Goes Solar
Google Goes Solar
Read about Google's planned 1.6MW photovoltaic solar installation.
solar | newsGoogle currently use a huge amount of electricty for lighting, air conditioning, and to power their thousands upon thousands of web servers. Therefore, blessed by year 'round Californian sunshine, it is a surprise it has taken them this long to decide to go solar.
Google are planning one of the largest corporate
solar installations in the world with around 1.6 megawatts of
solar photovoltaic panels at their Mountain View office facilities (The Googleplex) in Silicon Valley. At present plans are to cover the roofs of the four main building at the Googleplex and also two more buildings across the road with PV panels generating enough electricity to offset 30% of their peak electricity consumption in several of their office buildings (not including data-centres which use vast amounts of electricty).
The electricity generated would be enough to power 1000 average Californian homes. Google believe the installation will pay for itself in just 5-10 years and will cost approximately £5-6 million.
In total there will be 9,212
solar panels supplied by
Sharp. In Japan Sharp Corp. has the world's largest corporate solar installation generating in excess of 5 megawatts of electricity.
Google rivals Microsoft recently began installation of their own 2,288 panel solar system which will generate 0.5 megawatts of electrity.
Article Last Modified: 09:49, 13th Dec 2006
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