Google has announced that it has invested $38.8 million in two wind farms in North Dakota with a capacity of 169.5 MW. The wind farms were developed by NextEra Energy Resources.
The investment was not made through Google’s philanthropic division (Google.org), but appears to be a business investment and is expected to “provide attractive returns to Google”. It also appears to be a technology investment in turbine technology and wind farm control systems. Google reports that the wind farms use the latest wind turbines and control systems to reduce the cost of wind power. The turbines adjust blade pitch angles to improve efficiency and use larger blades to generate more power per turbine. A major advantage of these particular wind farms is that they are adjacent to existing high voltage transmission lines. The cost of building new transmission lines can add significantly to the cost of renewable energy projects which makes transmission potentially a major limiting factor to the development of wind and solar energy sources.
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