Google buys Altamont wind energy to power Googleplex

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Google buys Altamont wind energy to power Googleplex - San Jose Mercury News
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12/13/15, 1:08 AM
Google buys Altamont wind energy to
power Googleplex
By Matt O'Brien
mobrien@mercurynews.com (mailto:mobrien@mercurynews.com)
POSTED: 02/11/2015 06:00:00 AM PST
|
UPDATED: 10 MONTHS AGO
28 COMMENTS
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On a stormy and windy afternoon, Asim Tahir, the Integrated Design Program Manager on Google's real estate team, left, and
Meghan Casserly, with Google public relations, have their photo taken while standing next to a large wing turbine at an Altamont
wind farm off Dyer Road near Livermore, Calif., on Friday, Feb. 7, 2015. Google has signed an agreement to buy power from
NextEra Energy's Golden Hills Project, that will help provide electricity to the Googleplex and the company's data centers. The
project will remove the old existing wind turbines to be replaced by 48 new and much larger wind turbines. (Doug Duran/Bay
Area News Group) ( Doug Duran )
LIVERMORE -- Google has spent $1.5 billion around the
world on clean energy projects cutting the pollution from
millions of users clicking on search links, watching YouTube
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The company will announce Wednesday that it is buying
power from the Altamont Pass, one of the nation's oldest,
largest and most iconic wind farms that is about to get a
Google-funded makeover.
The tech giant has no plans to brand the blades with its
multicolored logo, but its 20-year power purchase agreement
with Florida-based NextEra Energy will dramatically
transform the rolling, treeless landscape that connects the Bay
Area with the Central Valley. About 770 old turbines from the
1980s will be replaced this year by 48 new machines
producing twice as much energy, enough to power Google's
corporate campus in Mountain View with 100 percent
renewable power.
"It'll be majestic," said Sam Arons, an energy strategist at
Google. "Today there are many small turbines of all different
sizes, all different vintages. It's kind of a hodgepodge out
there. Once this project is done, you'll see a lot of tall, sleek,
majestic turbines that will really de-clutter the landscape."
...
Google's involvement is the latest green power play from a
company that has spent a decade dropping money on wind,
solar and geothermal projects from West Texas to South Africa
and the Netherlands, and is an investor in Ivanpah, the
massive solar thermal power plant built by BrightSource
Energy in the Mojave Desert. Google says it operates with 35
3 of 14
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But unlike most of those projects, Google's Altamont venture
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is more than a capital investment. Just 50 miles from Mountain View, it will do more to
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Google is the second Silicon Valley tech giant this week to
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Apple announced an $850 million agreement to buy power
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Google is paying for 50 percent, or nearly 43 megawatts, of the
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power that will be produced by harnessing the wind whipping
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through NextEra's 7-square-mile Altamont site beginning in
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2016. The other buyer is undisclosed, but Florida-based
NextEra said it is neither a utility nor a tech company.
Neither Google nor NextEra is disclosing the price of the
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agreement.
"Not only do we think renewable energy is important from a climate change perspective, it
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also makes business sense," said Arons, 33, who grew up in the East Bay admiring the
turbines whenever his family cruised along I-580 through the canyon connecting Alameda
and San Joaquin counties.
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The buy helps protect Google from higher energy prices in the future, Arons said.
George Lucas was still finishing up his original Star Wars trilogy when the first Altamont
turbines were erected in 1981, and some observers were appalled by the sight of robot-like
sentinels towering over the ranchlands. Commuters eventually warmed up to the hulking
pinwheels, but the birds and their advocates never did. A 2004 study found that the turbines
killed thousands of eagles, hawks, owls and other birds each year.
5 of 14
12/13/15, 1:08 AM
That problem is expected to lessen with the new machines, which will be more carefully
situated, far fewer in number and spin at higher elevations. NextEra's new project, called
Golden Hills Wind, lies just south of I-580 and is part of a much larger initiative to
decommission more than 4,000 turbines on the Altamont and repower the hills with up to
280 more bird-friendly machines.
NextEra, which is the Altamont's largest energy provider, made a 2010 deal with Jerry
Brown, then the state's attorney general, to shut down all of its outdated, deadly turbines by
November this year. Other companies have been dragging their feet and asking for
extensions, but Google's interest appears to have ensured NextEra will finish its
86-megawatt repowering project by the time the old turbines stop spinning.
"Would the project have been built without Google and the other customer? I'd like to think
yes," said Anthony Pedroni, NextEra's director of business development. "But Google was
the first one to make the commitment. They stepped up and said they'd be the customer for
this."
Storm winds and rain tore through the Altamont as a team from Google and NextEra toured
the site with this newspaper Friday. The older-model turbines were turned off, part of a
seasonal shutdown to protect migratory birds, but newer General Electric turbines installed
by NextEra on a nearby parcel in 2011 were whirring swiftly.
"They're all sort of gentle giants," said Google real estate manager Asim Tahir, wearing a
...
helmet and rain-soaked jacket as he gazed up at the three-blade machine that towered more
than 400 feet.
Looking for new methods to power its energy-sucking data centers, Google began leading
the way in wind investments years ago but Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and other tech
companies have followed.
"The price of wind has declined very, very substantially over the past couple of years and the
6 of 14
12/13/15, 1:08 AM
technology has improved," said Ryan Wiser, a staff scientist who studies electricity markets
at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "The cost of wind energy is so low that it's
not as if these companies are taking an enormous financial risk in locking into these
agreements. The price is stable."
Contact Matt O'Brien at 408-920-5011. Follow him at Twitter.com/Mattoyeah
(http://Twitter.com/Mattoyeah).
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12/13/15, 1:08 AM
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Penny Gray
•
18 hours ago
Windmill Free Electric! Stop the Slaughter!
• Reply • Share ›
Daniel Cacho
•
10 months ago
Great article
Jerry999
•
10 months ago
Another moronic idea from Google. The new wind turbines are bigger with larger blades
to more effectively shred the hawks, owls, etc.
Obama and company granted an exclusion in the plains states to remove the limit of
American eagles shredded each year by those windmills. CA hawks migrate from the
Bay area using the wind path from the western winds that take them into Altamont pass
and perfect for windmill shredding.
A 2004 study found that the turbines killed thousands of eagles, hawks, owls and other
birds each year.
1
Kay O. Sweaver > Jerry999
•
8 months ago
There are definitely problems with wind turbines, but these are more mature
designs and will hopefully be less harmful to wildlife. But we also have to look at
this in a broader context, how many animals and people are harmed by pollution
from coal power plants?
...
spec9
13 of 14
•
10 months ago
This is GREAT news. That pass is a great place for a wind farm . . . and that is why there
has been one there for decades. But the old wind turbines are tiny and falling apart. And
many if not most are broken down. They need to rip out those old ones and install a nice
big farm of brand new big ones.
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Google buys Altamont wind energy to power Googleplex

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