Google starts its own electric utility

Last month Google filed paperwork to incorporate Google Energy and will begin buying and selling renewable energy on the wholesale market.

Fri, Jan 08 2010 at 11:40 AM EST

Photo: Visual Density/Flickr

Last month Google formally incorporated Google Energy, a new subsidiary that is seeking permission from the government to buy and sell electricity on the wholesale market.

Google uses a lot of electricity between their army of 22,000 employees and the hundreds of thousands of servers it's deployed around the world and has been pretty vocal about recognizing their need to be good corporate citizens on the climate change front. Google.org, their philanthropic arm, has been making a lot of investments in clean technology and developed the RE<C project, aimed at driving the cost of renewable energy below that of coal.

The formation of Google Energy probably doesn't mean that you'll be able to buy your electricity for your home from Google anytime soon (though with them you never really know). Company spokesman Niki Fenwick told CNET News that the move will allow them to have more flexibility to buy renewable energy.

"Right now, we can't buy affordable, utility-scale, renewable energy in our markets," Fenwick told CNET. "We want to buy the highest quality, most affordable renewable energy wherever we can and use the green credits."

In 2007, Google committed to becoming carbon neutral and has been pursuing their goal by buying high quality renewable energy energy credits. Google Energy is a smart move that will allow them to flex even more muscle in getting more renewable energy onto the grid and into their portfolio..

The New York Times has a great interview with Google's green energy go-to guy Bill Weihl that's worthy of a click over.

[Via CNET]

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