The Googleplex Goes Solar

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is planning to deploy a solar electricity system that will have a capacity of 1.6 megawatts at its famed million square foot headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. It will be the largest such installation on a corporate campus in the United States and one of the largest in the world, the company said.

EI Solutions, a subsidiary of Energy Innovations, will build the system, which will have enough capacity to power 1,000 homes in California. Installation of the panels -- numbering more than 9,000 -- will begin in November. They will be placed on the roofs of the four main buildings of the Googleplex and on two additional buildings across the street, as well as in a few parking lots, according to a blog posting by Robyn Beavers, corporate environmental programs manager at Google.

Rapid Payback

While he did not comment on Google's specific investment, Steve Chadima, chief marketing officer for EI Solutions, told the E-Commerce Times that typically, a project of this size and scope can be expected to pay for itself within five to eight years. "After that, producing electricity is free for the next 22 years," he noted. The company offers a guarantee on the system for at least 25 years.

Chadima considered state and federal tax credits, as well as California utility subsidies to companies, in making his calculation.

It is unclear, though, what Google's total savings would be from this project. The electricity equivalent of a thousand homes may seem huge -- but it will not be enough to power even half of the Googleplex, according to Beavers' blog. The electricity generated from the installation will offset approximately 30 percent of Google's peak electricity consumption in those buildings, she wrote.

Industry Growth

Most adopters of this technology are not motivated primarily by financial savings, though, Chadima pointed out. "Firms that adopt this technology tend to be environmental leaders in their particular industries," he said. "They want to make a statement."

However, he believes that within five years, firms will be driven as much by financial incentives as by environmental concerns when deploying the technology.

"It is rapidly moving to a place where firms will be deploying it in order to remain competitive on costs," he observed.

Google's motives appear to stem both from the desire to do good and the desire to save money -- at least down the road.

"The installation of clean and renewable power represents a first step in reducing our environmental impact as a company. We believe that improving our environmental practices is not only our responsibility as a corporate citizen, but good business planning," Beavers wrote.

"One interesting [aspect of] Google's project is that in addition to doing the right thing for the environment and coming up with a reasonable cost of energy, it is also locking in its energy prices for the next 25 years," Adam Parker, president of Conservation Services Group, told the E-Commerce Times.