CIG: Search giant Google Inc. ploughs $38.8 million into two U.S. wind farm projects.

May 4, 2010 - PRLog -- Search engine giant Google Inc. has announced via a blog post recently that it has invested $38.8 million into two North Dakota wind farms built by NextEra Energy Resources which jointly will provide 170MW of wind energy capacity, CIG has learned.

The two projects are to use ground breaking technologies, pioneering the use of control systems that continually monitor the output from each turbine and constantly adjust individual blade angels to optimize performance and efficiency and also to allow the use of blades that are 15% larger than average.

Google’s green business operations manager agreed that the investment marked a shift in the company’s green investment strategy after previously being involved in funding some high-profile renewable energy start ups.

"We have been dedicating resources to developing new technologies, including making investments in early-stage renewable energy companies such as eSolar and AltaRock," CIG believes he was quoted as having said. "Smart capital includes not only these early-stage company investments, but also dedicated funding for utility-scale projects. To tackle this need, we’ve been looking at investments in renewable energy projects, like the one we just signed, that can accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to Google and more capital for developers to build additional projects."

According to sources at NextEra, the largest U.S. wind energy generator with 7.5GW, the firm had sold around $190 million of Class B shares in the two wind projects and Google had acquired about 20% of these. The firm declined to reveal who the other investors were.

CIG was told that Google’s interest in the projects are in the form of tax equity investments.

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