Google Applies To Become Energy Marketer

necro81 writes "Google consumes massive amounts of electrical energy to power its data centers across the country and world. Now it has created a subsidiary, Google Energy LLC, and applied (pdf) to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to become a utility-scale energy trader. Google's stated aim is to be able to purchase renewable energy directly from producers at bulk rates, pursuing its goal of becoming carbon neutral. It is likely that Google Energy would also permit Google's own renewable energy projects to sell their energy at more favorable rates. Google reportedly does not have plans to actively become an energy broker, a la Enron."

Comments

Re:Tornado Alley Could Be the New Middle East

[QuantumRiff]

Put two and two together and I think it's obvious that wind power companies were looking to work with Google and were maybe even encouraged by Google.

The Power company in Green Bay, WI spent a few hundred million building a wind farm in Iowa (a few hundred miles away). There is a new law here that power companies have to have a certain percentage of their power renewable. Since the wind doesn't blow as much in Green Bay (if only they could get power from the cold, or the hatred of Brett Farve and the Vikings), it is cheaper and easier for them to build it in Iowa, then sell it, over the transmission networks, to themselves.

Re:I also heard on NPR this morning...

[stonecypher]

Never forget Google's main money maker is not search, it is not ads and it is not applications. It is data and the statistics that are derived from that data.

Citation, please? Their shareholder prospectus says 97% of their revenue is from AdWords.

Why do you believe otherwise?