Google investment in Kern County wind farm
There’s been a lot of important California news lately.
There has also been, IMHO, “very mad” news about circumcision as a BALLOT issue! (1, 2)
But before tomorrow’s news brings likely word of a Google mobile payments system, I thought that I had better mention Google’s $55 million investment in a wind farm in Kern County! Google and its partner Citibank will EACH spend $55 million to help finance part of the Alta Wind Energy Center, one of the largest wind farms in the world! The project, in the Tehachapi Mountains will generate 1.5 gigawatts when it is complete, enough electricity to power 450,000 through Southern California Edison. The project will increase the wind-energy jobs in California by 20% and pump over $1.2 billion into the Kern County economy, according to developers.
The first five segments of the Alta project are already generating 720 megawatts of electricity. By the end of 2011, another 300 megawatts should go online. Google and Citibank are buying the fourth phase of the project (Alta IV) and will lease it back to the developer Terra-Gen to operate on a long-term contract, a “leveraged lease.”
Google has spent more than $400 million on clean energy projects, counting this one, including an offshore wind energy transmission project on the East Coast and a wind farm in Oregon. Google has also spent $168 million into BrightSource’s Ivanpah solar energy installation, in – you guessed it – the Mojave Desert!
-Bill at
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