February 19, 2010 6:38 AM PST
Google gets go-ahead to buy, sell energy
by Candace Lombardi
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has authorized Google Energy to buy and sell electricity in bulk like any other utility.
The FERC, the agency with oversight of the U.S. power grid, signed an order (PDF) on Thursday that grants Google Energy market-based rate authorization. This paves the way for the search giant to not only better manage its own energy costs, but to possibly add electricity marketer to its repertoire of services.
The order specifically grants Google Energy--a subsidiary of Google--the rights "for the sale of energy, capacity, and ancillary services at market-based rates" while acknowledging that neither Google Energy nor its affiliates "own or control any generation or transmission" facilities.
Google has expressed a desire for access to larger amounts of renewable energy to help produce the electricity it consumes as part of its vast search-engine empire. Google has long maintained that its goal is to become a carbon-neutral company. As a side note, it's not unusual for large companies to be granted the authority to trade in the wholesale electricity market for the purpose of managing their own energy costs.
As recently as January--after Google Energy made its request to FERC--the company maintained that its expressed immediate wish was for more control over electricity pricing to more effectively gain access to affordable renewable energy.
"Right now, we can't buy affordable, utility-scale, renewable energy in our markets. We want to buy the highest quality, most affordable renewable energy wherever we can and use the green credits," Google representative Niki Fenwick told CNET News at the time.
But it seems that Google may actually enter the energy business. The search giant formed the Delaware-based subsidiary called Google Energy in December and when asked about it, hinted at a future in energy.
"We don't have any concrete plans. We want the ability to buy and sell electricity in case it becomes part of our portfolio," Fenwick told CNET News in January.
Google's escalating interest in energy
Prior to that obvious play, the company has been testing the energy industry waters through green energy technology investment, and research.
In 2007, Google pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help engineers and scientists figure out a way to generate 1 gigawatt of clean electricity and make it cheaper than coal.
In 2008, Google CEO Eric Schmidt presented an energy plan--complete with explicit math calculations--to back up an idea for how the U.S. could eventually get 100 percent of its electric power generation from renewable sources, cut emissions by half, create more jobs, and decrease overall energy costs.
Google has also invested hundred of millions in green energy technology research and start-up companies with projects in wind, solar, solar thermal, and geothermal. It has invested in projects to develop plug-in hybrid cars and has developed with its own "smart charging" software for plug-in electric vehicles.
The company has launched its own energy pilot projects including a 1.6-megawatt solar installation for its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, thought to be the largest corporate-owned installation in the U.S.
Google has even developed a smart metering software platform for monitoring and regulating home electricity use from any Web-enabled phone. Google Power has been testing the software in the U.K., as well as unveiling a U.S. version for smart phones.
Its most notable electricity investment success story might be eSolar, a start-up that grew out of the Google Idealab and offers "turnkey" thermal solar energy plants using software-controlled heliostats. The company has already garnered over 500 megawatts worth of projects for Southern California Edison and several utilities in the southwestern U.S., with projects in the pipeline for China, Spain, the Middle East, and South Africa.
Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were also early investors in the electric car maker Tesla.
And in the lead-up to the recent Copenhagen summit on climate change, Google hosted its own energy conference in November that included leading energy experts and the U.S. undersecretary of energy.
Google could not immediately be reached for comment.
Showing posts with label renewable energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label renewable energy. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Dianne Feinstein Not in Anyone’s Backyard
Protect the environment or create renewable energy? A new bill shows they're far from the same thing.
By Daniel Stone | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 13, 2010
You can't blame California for not being ambitious. In 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set the bold goal that by 2020, a third of the state's power would come from renewable sources. Not bad for the nation's most populous state and among the world's top 10 largest economies. At the time, it was a target miles ahead of any other state, and a fairly risky one at the beginning of a would-be global recession that would drive the Golden State deep into the red.
It's easy to see why Schwarzenegger thought it was possible. Earlier that year, oilman T. Boone Pickens characterized the Southwest U.S. as the Saudi Arabia of solar power, offering the choicest elevation and sun strength in the world for optimal power generation. On that, everyone agreed. Where to put the solar panels continues to be a different story. Everyone's for renewable energy, just not when solar or wind farms block their view or drive down property values.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein revived the debate last month with a wilderness designation bill intended to rope off more than half a million acres of Southern California land between Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve, restricting the area to both solar developers and off-road vehicles. Such prime desert land shouldn't be touched, she has argued, and the accentuated effects of global warming will make that territory increasingly valuable to desert wildlife.
That kind of reasoning, though, has some energy developers accusing Feinstein of pulling the NIMBY card—wanting renewable energy at any cost, but hollering "not in my backyard" when looking at the map. A valid criticism, perhaps, considering all of the protected land would be in California, even though the Mojave's prized ecosystem extends into parts of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.
Feinstein cites two reasons why her proposed area is different. One is that the public land in question was donated to the government by conservation groups in 2003 under the condition that it be protected. The other reason is loftier. The western Mojave houses several endangered species, a stretch of the historic Route 66, sweeping desert vistas, lava flows and the ancient Amboy volcanic crater. A blanket of solar panels could threaten it all. Feinstein's staff would not respond on the record to criticism of the bill, but directed a reporter to the senator's public statements. In December, she said that there were many places in the California desert "essential and appropriate" for renewable energy, "but there are also places that future generations will thank us for setting aside."
California has other lands, both federally and state owned, on which solar producers could relocate their projects. But no place is perfect; the sun doesn't shine as brightly in California's Central Valley and the desolate areas of Arizona or Utah are either too mountainous or too far from consumption centers to make transmission viable. Get too close to populated areas like San Bernardino and people complain that the infrastructure ruins the landscape. "There's a compelling case that any land in the Southwest is too environmentally rich to develop on; but the fact is, if we want renewable energy, they have to go somewhere," says Jim Baak, director of utility-scale policy with California advocacy group Vote Solar. Speaking at Yale in 2008, Schwarzenegger was more blunt: "They say that we want renewable energy, but we don't want you to put it anywhere.I mean, if we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put them."
Despite the disagreement, the measure already has considerable support, especially after Feinstein redrew the boundaries of the land to accommodate developers who were unhappy with the original draft. Nearly a dozen influential conservation and wilderness groups have signed on to Feinstein's bill.
More notable, however, is the parties who disagree, many of them solar associations and power companies. Far from searing and critical opposition, the reaction has been more of a grumble. Of 130 applications for solar projects currently under review by the California Energy Commission, just over a dozen fall within Feinstein's proposed area. With federal subsidies and incentives to move elsewhere, none have complained too loudly. As environmentalists, they also realize that debating renewable energy vs. environmental protection, they're arguing amongst friends.
Some of the bills backers on the Hill say it's too early to gauge senate support of her bill, although it won't hit the same legislative roadblock as other contentious issues like health care or cap and trade. If it does pass, however, less available land makes the NIMBY issue even more difficult to address. If it can be addressed at all. The newer acronym cheekily floated by frustrated renewable energy developers is "BANANA." Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.
By Daniel Stone | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 13, 2010
You can't blame California for not being ambitious. In 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set the bold goal that by 2020, a third of the state's power would come from renewable sources. Not bad for the nation's most populous state and among the world's top 10 largest economies. At the time, it was a target miles ahead of any other state, and a fairly risky one at the beginning of a would-be global recession that would drive the Golden State deep into the red.
It's easy to see why Schwarzenegger thought it was possible. Earlier that year, oilman T. Boone Pickens characterized the Southwest U.S. as the Saudi Arabia of solar power, offering the choicest elevation and sun strength in the world for optimal power generation. On that, everyone agreed. Where to put the solar panels continues to be a different story. Everyone's for renewable energy, just not when solar or wind farms block their view or drive down property values.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein revived the debate last month with a wilderness designation bill intended to rope off more than half a million acres of Southern California land between Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve, restricting the area to both solar developers and off-road vehicles. Such prime desert land shouldn't be touched, she has argued, and the accentuated effects of global warming will make that territory increasingly valuable to desert wildlife.
That kind of reasoning, though, has some energy developers accusing Feinstein of pulling the NIMBY card—wanting renewable energy at any cost, but hollering "not in my backyard" when looking at the map. A valid criticism, perhaps, considering all of the protected land would be in California, even though the Mojave's prized ecosystem extends into parts of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.
Feinstein cites two reasons why her proposed area is different. One is that the public land in question was donated to the government by conservation groups in 2003 under the condition that it be protected. The other reason is loftier. The western Mojave houses several endangered species, a stretch of the historic Route 66, sweeping desert vistas, lava flows and the ancient Amboy volcanic crater. A blanket of solar panels could threaten it all. Feinstein's staff would not respond on the record to criticism of the bill, but directed a reporter to the senator's public statements. In December, she said that there were many places in the California desert "essential and appropriate" for renewable energy, "but there are also places that future generations will thank us for setting aside."
California has other lands, both federally and state owned, on which solar producers could relocate their projects. But no place is perfect; the sun doesn't shine as brightly in California's Central Valley and the desolate areas of Arizona or Utah are either too mountainous or too far from consumption centers to make transmission viable. Get too close to populated areas like San Bernardino and people complain that the infrastructure ruins the landscape. "There's a compelling case that any land in the Southwest is too environmentally rich to develop on; but the fact is, if we want renewable energy, they have to go somewhere," says Jim Baak, director of utility-scale policy with California advocacy group Vote Solar. Speaking at Yale in 2008, Schwarzenegger was more blunt: "They say that we want renewable energy, but we don't want you to put it anywhere.I mean, if we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put them."
Despite the disagreement, the measure already has considerable support, especially after Feinstein redrew the boundaries of the land to accommodate developers who were unhappy with the original draft. Nearly a dozen influential conservation and wilderness groups have signed on to Feinstein's bill.
More notable, however, is the parties who disagree, many of them solar associations and power companies. Far from searing and critical opposition, the reaction has been more of a grumble. Of 130 applications for solar projects currently under review by the California Energy Commission, just over a dozen fall within Feinstein's proposed area. With federal subsidies and incentives to move elsewhere, none have complained too loudly. As environmentalists, they also realize that debating renewable energy vs. environmental protection, they're arguing amongst friends.
Some of the bills backers on the Hill say it's too early to gauge senate support of her bill, although it won't hit the same legislative roadblock as other contentious issues like health care or cap and trade. If it does pass, however, less available land makes the NIMBY issue even more difficult to address. If it can be addressed at all. The newer acronym cheekily floated by frustrated renewable energy developers is "BANANA." Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)