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Google is into renewables. They state the following: "Clean and affordable energy is a growing need for our company, so we’re excited about lunching a strategic initiative whose mission is to develop electricity from renewable sources cheaper than electricity produced from coal. Initially, this project to create renewable energy cheaper than coal will focus on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, and enhanced geothermal systems – but we’ll explore other potential breakthrough technologies too."
Google has a large commercial site in the city of Mountain View, California in which they installed solar PV panels on all of the roofs of their buildings. It is one of the largest solar systems in the world. The power capacity of the solar system will ultimately be 1,600 kWe peak capacity.
My comments: Something went wrong and they do not know how the system is performing. Google has taken the data about this installation off of their web site. This would have been a golden opportunity to flush out the real performance of solar PV systems. Most PV Solar systems I monitored experienced a capacity factor of 15%. That is too low to warrant the use of solar PV systems. But we will see if Google every gets the data back about their system we will again monitor it. Don't hold your breath.
Here is a picture of the Google complex in Mountain View California. There is about 1,500 kWe power capacity of solar PV system now of the roofs of these buildings. To go to Google's solar Web page, Click here
The solar panels have been on these roofs and operational since June 18, 2007.
Google reported that 90% of the solar panels have been installed and when finished it will be 1,600 kWe capacity. As it now stands the energy production reported is hardly worth the $12,000,000 investment ( my estimate), even with the perks offered by the State and Federal governments. I will follow this project. I must thank Google for this project. It will show the world just how poorly roof top solar PV panels perform throughout a years time.
Google says that their installation is projected to produce enough electricity for approximately 1,000 California homes. I say they are high by a factor of 5. It will provide about enough electric energy for 200 homes, each home requires and average value of 10,000 kWh of energy per year.