Google Buys Wind Energy

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Google Energy has made its first purchase of wind energy from a wind farm in Iowa, owned by the largest wind plant owner/operator in the United States.

This comes a few weeks after the search engine giant invested in wind farms [3] in North Dakota.

NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, the competitive energy subsidiary of NextEra Energy, Inc. has entered into a power purchase agreement with Google Energy, LLC. Google Energy will purchase 114 megawatts of wind energy from the Story II Wind Energy Center in operation in Story and Hardin counties in Iowa.

"With the support of customers like Google Energy, we've built our wind fleet from fewer than 500 megawatts a decade ago to more than 7,600 megawatts -- the largest fleet in North America today," said Mike O'Sullivan, senior vice president of development for NextEra Energy Resources.

The 150-megawatt Story II Wind Energy Center began operation in December 2009. Power deliveries to Google Energy will begin on July 30, 2010. The remaining 36 megawatts from the Story II Wind Energy Center are currently being sold to the city of Ames, Iowa.

NextEra Energy Resources currently has nearly 700 wind turbines in operation in Iowa with a nameplate capacity of more than 1,000 megawatts.

"When we decided in 2007 to voluntarily become carbon neutral, our intent was to take responsibility for our carbon emissions and promote sustainable environmental solutions," [4] Urs Hoelzle, Google's senior vice president, operations, wrote on his company blog.

Google said it minimizes energy consumption, powers its facilities with renewable energy and purchases carbon offsets.

The 20-year power purchase agreement will supply enough energy to power several data centers, Google said.

"By contracting to purchase so much energy for so long, we're giving the developer of the wind farm financial certainty to build additional clean energy projects," Hoelzle said. "The inability of renewable energy developers to obtain financing has been a significant inhibitor to the expansion of renewable energy."

"We've been excited about this deal because taking 114 megawatts of wind power off the market for so long means producers have the incentive and means to build more renewable energy capacity for other customers," Hoelzle concluded.

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