Google goes electric with cars and solar power

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 20 June 2007 03:10

Opinion and Analysis

Google has also issued $200,000 for a plug-in R&D program by the Electrical Power Research Institute, $100,000 will go to Plug-In America on a public awareness and advocate program, $200,000 goes to the Rocky Mountain Institute to design a practical plug-in hybrid vehicle and $150,000 to the University of Delaware for V2G (vehicle-to-grid) research and implementation planning.

Google is also offering “approximately US $10 million technologies and companies featuring plug in hybrids, fully electric vehicles, vehicle-to-grid capabilities, batteries and other storage technologies, and the application of renewable energy and fuels to green vehicles”.

In addition, an ‘Enterprise Rent-A-Car’ program has been established to encourage use of a free car-sharing program for Google employees, with the fleet to eventually contain 100 plug-in hybrid cars as they are built and become available.

At Google HQ, a powerful array of solar panels on Google buildings was also unveiled, with the system able to deliver 1.6 megawatts. Google says it’s “the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S. to date, and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world”.

1.6 megawatts is enough energy to power 1000 California homes, highlighting the benefits that come from generating your own electricity, which will one day be done by everyone, as consumers install more solar panels and other forms of renewable energy generation, often called ‘micro generation’, with every single person and their electricity generating devices becoming a part of the overall power generation mix.

Google’s latest environmentally friendly initiatives show just how serious they are in wanting to change world’s energy use.

If Google is only one tenth as successful as they have been with search engines and online advertising, Google’s efforts may well be the tipping point that truly accelerates this industry into overdrive, allowing Google to add ‘saving the world’ to their already long list of impressive achievements.

And given that Google still holds the ‘Don’t be evil’ rule they set for themselves close to their hearts, helping to save and ‘recharge’ the planet is one way to show that the forces of good are still in charge at Google HQ, even though privacy considerations remain, and with Google (and other search engines) acquiescing to foreign government requests to censor part the search results index.

Let’s hope the car companies don’t blow a fuse over Google’s initiative and actively start working on mostly electric hybrids, if not simply fully electric cars of their own whether with, or without, Google’s help, for soon enough, the smog filled cities and afflicted citizens of the world will demand it!