Internet Search giant Google Inc. is planning to become one of the largest solar powered corporate office complexes in the U.S. by building a solar-powered electricity system at its Silicon Valley headquarters, according to company sources on Wednesday.
David Radcliffe, vice president of real estate at Google, said, “We are going to be producing roughly 30 percent of the power that we use. This is for our corporate-office people center.”
This project won't include the data centers that are used to supply power to many of Google's Web services all over the world, as pointed out by a company executive.
Earlier this year Google bought the campus for $319 million (euro255 million), that is nicknamed as Googleplex, wherein it plans to install more than 9,200 solar panels by next spring. The solar panels, once installed would have the capacity of producing about 1.6 megawatts of electricity that's equivalent to the power supply for about 1,000 California homes.
Pasadena-based EI Solutions, that forms a part of a high-tech incubator headed by entrepreneur Bill Gross, is handling the project.
The company wasn't willing to reveal the cost of the project, and when asked to comment on the cost of the project or whether the solar project would recover its costs over time, Radcliffe said, "We wanted to dispel the myth that you can't be both green and profitable."
"We hope corporate America is paying attention. We want to see a lot of copycats" of this project, Radcliffe added.
However, it is estimated that the savings anticipated from future energy bills as a consequence of this solar project should enable the company to recover the project costs in about 5-10 years time.
Google's has made a significant move by undertaking this project, strongly favoring the use of alternative energy sources, just like its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who are big supporters of alternative energy, and moreso considering the fact that energy costs are a major concern at Google because a tremendous amount of power is required to keep the industry leading search engine working.
