Google Is Making Its Biggest Ever Bet on Renewable Energy

Steven Lake · February 2015

http://offgridquest.com/energy/google-is-making-its-biggest-ever-bet-on

What's your guy's take on this? Pipe dream or something to look forward to?

BB. · February 2015

Last year, two of the Google's engineers did not think Renewable Energies were going to "work".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/

Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that renewables will never permit the human race to cut CO₂ emissions to the levels demanded by climate activists. Whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible. Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren't guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or "technology" of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company. The duo were employed at Google on the RE<C project, which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal.
RE<C was a failure, and Google closed it down after four years. Now, Koningstein and Fork have explained the conclusions they came to after a lengthy period of applying their considerable technological expertise to renewables, in an article posted at IEEE Spectrum....

oil pan 4 · February 2015

Trying to power everything with solar panels looks pretty stupid compared to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knofNX7HCbg
My best friend who is a mechanical engineer says if even 20% of what they say is true then our government energy programs has been seriously if not criminally mismanaged (surprise, surprise).

Steven Lake · February 2015

Pfft, Government + Anything is a failure before it ever gets started.

BB. · February 2015

From the original link from Steven:

Google has now committed more than $1.8 billion to renewable energy projects, including wind and solar farms on three continents. This deal, which may have a return as high as 8 percent, is a sign that technology companies can take advantage of investment formats once reserved only for banks.
...
The deal reflects the success of renewable energy companies in tapping into a broader pool of investors with financial products that emerged in the past three years, either paying dividends or sheltering cash. Those helped boost investment in clean energy 16 percent to a record $310 billion last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
... The Google deal is structured as a tax-equity transaction, meaning the web search developer gets tax breaks that flow from solar systems financed by the fund. Earlier this week, First Solar Inc. and SunPower Corp. said they’d form a yieldco, a business model that channels income from operating wind and solar farms into dividends for investors.
Renewable-energy projects are entitled to various tax benefits, including a credit for 30 percent of the installed cost of a solar power system. Unprofitable companies, such as SolarCity, often can’t use the credits and provide them instead to tax-equity investors
Google announced a similar deal in January, agreeing to invest in the tax credits generated by a $188 million solar project in Utah being built by Scatec Solar ASA.

It is all based on tax law--Has nothing (or almost nothing) to do with engineering/economics/environment.

-Bill

Steven Lake · February 2015

So what do you think on this? Valid idea with some hope of success, pipe dream, or just PR chest beating? I'm guessing the last one TBH.

BB. · February 2015

As long as the government gives favorable tax treatments and funding/no-recourse loans--Yea, it will continue until it cannot.

-Bill

Steven Lake · March 2015

http://blog.solarcity.com/google-and-solarcity-2.0

Here's some new info on the whole Google solar energy thing. They're teaming up with Solar City (no idea who they are) which is run by genius boy Elon Musk of Tesla fame. Supposedly they buy the solar panels and you sell them the electricity you don't use. Or at least that's how I understand it. Might have the terms wrong, but it seems sorta like one of those "I'll scratch your back, and you scratch mine" kinda things with Google getting the better deal.

DanS26 · March 2015

Solar has to compete at the wholesale level. Anything else means that solar is subsidized by your neighbor (ie net metering) or tax credits (ie renewable energy credits).

Solar can work at the residential level, but it will not work at the commercial and industrial level, the footprint is just too large. That is what the Google engineers realized, it is just not economical at the commercial and industrial level unless a breakthrough in energy storage comes about. Even then if we have the energy storage capability, then we would have to cover a good sized county of New Mexico in panels to provide the power.

Let's just put some reality to all the hype.

Steven Lake · March 2015

Thank you, I'm glad to hear these comments, good or bad, as they put a proper face on all of this. Of course, here's another thing to consider. Our ancestors for millennia got by just fine with zero electricity, so if everyone went back to hyper efficient living and used a ton less electricity, we wouldn't have to cover a good sized county with panels and batteries as we'd have all the energy we needed from probably half of that. Now on the battery storage front, yes, I fully agree with that sentiment.

Google Is Making Its Biggest Ever Bet on Renewable Energy

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