Google Campus to Become Solar-powered

prostoalex writes "Reuters is reporting that Google is equipping its headquarters with a solar panel 'capable of generating 1.6 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 1,000 California homes.' This will make Google's Mountain View campus the largest solar-powered office complex in the United States."

Good, but not a huge deal

[rm999]

"A Google executive said the company will rely on solar power to supply nearly a third of the electricity consumed by office workers at its roughly one-million-square-foot headquarters. This does not include power consumed by data centers that power many of Google's Web services worldwide, he said."

That's great, I am really proud of them for using an alternative energy source (especially in such a sunny area) but most of their energy usage is those data centers and servers, not their employees. They purposefully did not give a % of total energy saved because it probably would have been on the order of 0.1-5%, which would have revealed the ridiculous amount of energy they actually use.

How big is it?

[jorghis]

The article didnt say anything about its physical size. I wonder how much space they would have to consume to supply that much power.

The google campus doesnt have that many buildings, I have this weird image in my mind of all their buildings completely covered by solar panels.

Install panels for data centers?

[Salvance]

Think there's any chance Google would start installing solar panels on their data centers? This would be a HUGE gesture of enviro-friendly computing, even if it did cost them a bundle. It would certainly get other data centers and large power consumers (like yahoo and microsoft) to consider following suit. Based on estimates posted at Wikipedia, they consume 20MW of power for their 450,000+ servers (which actually seems really low - only 50W per server?).

Assuming it's more like 80MW of power they consume (equivalent to ~60K homes), I wonder if there'd even be enough high quality solar panels to offset a majority of this power consumption? I guess it makes more sense for them to start building wind farms near their out-of-the-way GooglePlexes. Some 5MW wind turbines are being tested today - hmmm ... let's see, 16 wind turbines vs. 150,000 solar panels ...

BTW: here's a link to a more detailed article on the subject: SF Gate - Google sets sight on solar [sfgate.com]

Re:Microsoft's response

[generic-man]

Microsoft already has solar power on its campus. [sunpowercorp.com]

Something seems odd about installing solar panels in a city famous for grey overcast skies, but the panels work nonetheless. :)

All buildings should be solar

[AdmNaismith]

All new building from this momnet forward should incorporate some solar and/or wind element for generating at least some electricity. There is absolutely no reason this cannot be written into the building codes of every citycounty/state in the US

Re:Long Term Benefit?

[aussie_a]

Does that include hiring someone to scrape off the bird shit from the cells?

Re:Install panels for data centers?

[appleLaserWriter]

It would certainly get other data centers and large power consumers (like yahoo and microsoft) to consider following suit

Solar power is extremely expensive, and power is generally the single largest cost in operating a data center (bandwidth, server leases, and even the cost of A-grade real estate in an urban core like New York City are small compared to power costs). Real world data center managers are interested in (1) more reliable power (no sags, no blackouts, no brownouts) (2) less expensive power. Empty gestures like solar panels don't really enter into the equation. That is fortunate, because it isn't even clear that solar panels are carbon neutral, much less carbon negative, over their operating lifetime.

Re:make a little, share a little...

[hazem]

Nike doesn't often get good press, but they recently build a windfarm in Lakdaal, Belgium, where they have their main European distribution center. The windfarm provides 100% of the power needs of the facility, in addition to the power needs of some 8000 households.

I'm sure google will share/sell what they don't use.

Re:Payback?

[WindBourne]

For a small installation in Colorado, it is on the order of 5 years or less (using the energy by-back from Excell ). Considering that they are getting more support from Ca. state and their energy costs are higher and their panel costs will be lower, I would guess that the payoff will certainly be less than ours. Without assistance, then it is a matter of what the local energy company will pay for it. Some are trying to discourage energy so are not buying it back. Then and only then is the payback 30 years.

Re:Yawn!

[tehdaemon]

"I believe replacement is suggested after 25 years"

No, that is just when the warranty runs out. Since it has only been 52 years since the modern Si photovoltaic cell was invented, the life of solar cells is not really known. The oldest working communications satellite appears to be ATS-3 (from a quick google search) and is 39 years old. - so they can work at least that long.

Re:Economic, not environmental.

[Alioth]

The energy payback on a monocrystalline panel is around 6 years. It's a long standing myth that a solar panel takes more energy to make than it generates.

Re:Economic, not environmental.

[Silver Sloth]

It's not that I disbelieve either you, or the GP, but with one saying black and the other saying white, it leaves the interested but uninformed confused. Do you have any authorities to quote - Wikipedia is no help at all, and Google throws up too many trees to see the wood.

Thanks

Re:Economic, not environmental.

[hanwen]

Quoting this study [chem.uu.nl] from 1997:

There still seems to be a popular belief that PV systems cannot 'pay back' their energy investment. The data from recent studies show however that although for present-day systems the EPBT can still be high, it is generally well below the expected life time of a PV system

Re:Yawn!

[ErikZ]

One major problem, You're assuming that the price(value) of electricty stays constant.

Re:Google stockholders, REVOLT!, $170 mil lost

[Anonymous Coward]

They get 30% of the cost back right away in an investment tax credit, but that mysteriously only reduces the depreciation basis by 15%, so they get to depreciate the remaining 85% in about 5 years, saving 35% of that value in corporate taxes. So suddenly your $120 million solar installation only costs Google $50 million or so. Not counting any cash incentives they may get from the state of California, who have billions put aside for solar investment and will write people a check for up to 50% of the cost (although that figure is for small residential systems). Also, California has a "renewable portfolio standard" for electricity producers, dictating that something like 20% of their energy has to come from renewable sources. This creates a market for Renewable Energy Credits, so Google can sell the environmental benefits of their solar power back to the utility for several cents per kWh.

I don't know how this all adds up without doing a spreadsheet and knowing their discount rate, but solar energy investments in certain states (esp. California) are good, low-risk, positive-return investments.

Now, that's not saying anything about whether this is good for society, who is footing much of the bill through the tax credits and rebates, but it's good for the company.