Sustainable IT | Ted Samson » A view to Google's solar power

December 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

A view to Google's solar power

TAGS: Google, Solar power

Google's headquarters, the Googleplex, has long been an architecturally pretty impressive building, but with the addition of 9,000-plus solar panels, it looks all the cooler. The search behemoth has posted pics of the installation on its Solar Panel Project Web site , brought to my attention by the folks over at TreeHugger.

"This installation is projected to produce enough electricity for approximately 1,000 California homes or 30-percent of Google's peak electricity demand in our solar powered buildings at our Mountain View, Calif. headquarters," Google reports.

Google also received a tidy sum in incentives from PG&E for its installation: $4.5 million.

As an interesting, though perhaps gimmicky, addition: Google reports how many kilowatt-hours of energy the panels supply over a 24-hour period, a seven-day period, and since the installation in June of this year.

For example, as I write this, for example, Google reports that it's generate 675 kilowatt-hours in the past 24 hours -- enough to power 5,625 hours of flat screen TV watching or 2,812 alarm clocks for 24 hours. Those numbers may be off, though, as the site reports the monitoring system seems to be having some problems right now.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and writer of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on December 10, 2007 12:20 PM

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