Google To Invest $100 Million In World's Largest Wind Farm

NEW YORK - Google Inc said on Monday it and two Japanese partners will pay General Electric Co about $500 million for a majority equity stake in the world's largest wind farm, under construction in Oregon.

The $2 billion Shepherds Flat project, near Arlington, Oregon, is due to be completed next year. It will stretch over 30 square miles of north-central Oregon and generate enough energy for 235,000 U.S. homes. The site's developer is Caithness Energy.

Measured by its 845-megawatts of capacity, the site is the world's largest wind farm, Google and GE said.

GE said the collaboration was part of its strategy of drawing private investment to the U.S. wind market. GE and Google are partnering with the U.S. unit of Japan's Sumitomo Corp and a unit of Itochu Corp.

Google, Itochu and Sumitomo will together own 56 percent of the total project, reducing GE's equity stake to 34 percent. Caithness will own the balance, GE Energy Financial Services spokesman Andy Katell said.

The site will eventually use GE 338 turbines and will provide electricity to Southern California Edison, a unit of Edison International.

Google said its investment totaled about $100 million.

Sumitomo jointly owns a Texas wind farm with GE and owns wind farms in Japan and China. Itochu partnered with GE on an Oklahoma wind farm. Google has invested more than $350 million in the clean energy sector. Earlier this month, it invested in a solar project near Berlin.

(Reporting by Nick Zieminski, editing by Bernard Orr)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[rodjard]

06:34 AM on 05/26/2011

Oil painting artists must be delighted. Now, I can't imaging doing one
without a little trail of windmills perspectively trailing off in the distance.
BEAUTIFUL.

[rodjard]

05:57 AM on 05/26/2011

There are actually crackpote worried about windmills killing birds
while thousands of coal miners die of Blacklung and COPD.
The toll on humans and animals alike from loading our atmosphere
full of carbon and other noxious gasses from oil and coal is untold.
How mant humans and creatures have died from nuclear disasters?

I am going to have to stop driving my car. bugs are dying on my windshield DUH!!

[rodjard]

05:35 AM on 05/26/2011

We are granting NASA one billion dollars to get a
thimble full of dust from an asteroid.

However Google is spending 100 million dollard for
the worlds largest wind farm.

What is wrong with this picture.

[rodjard]

09:14 AM on 04/28/2011

Over a half billion for one cruise missile and we are supposed to be all
impressed that at this late date some is going to spend one fifth of that
on a wind farm in the ocean. Sounds like we take our nations energy
future really serious ---------------------------HA!!!!!!!

[red clavier]

01:01 PM on 04/22/2011

Noisy and ugly.
Needs the area of the State of Rhode Island to provide the same power as one nuclear plant.
At least here in Massachusetts three times the cost of conventionally generated power.
And the law requires my local utility to buy it.
Selling something for three times the going rate and having a guaranteed buyer is a sweet deal for those positioned well politically.

[Edward Standley]

10:20 PM on 04/22/2011

If you don't know how much in government subsidies we give to coal and nuke power plants, the numbers are right at your fingertips. In some cases, the subsidies exceed the market value of the electricity produced. Coal and nuclear are not only not "cheap", they are dangerous. Coal and nuclear power is 19th and 20th century power. Solar, wind, and geothermal are the future and private investors are proving it. They aren't doing this as a hobby, they know it's feasible and profitable.

[red clavier]

01:16 AM on 04/23/2011

Links? Statistics? Numbers?
Private investors who get the government to force people to buy their product at THREE times market cost don't prove nothing.

[overcat]

05:09 AM on 04/26/2011

Ever been around those big wind farms in eastern Oregon and Washington? I have. Noise? Not really - and the areas where they are built are so sparsely populated that there's virtually no one around to disturb with noise. Lots and lots of hay fields. Ugly? A matter of opinion. Most importantly, the area has steady, strong, virtually unrelenting wind.

[enaturebooks]

02:34 AM on 04/21/2011

Glad to see this but solar, which Google is also investing in heavily, is the future in my opinion. 30 sq. miles for 230,000 homes is pretty good. Think India, on the outskirts of Delhi it could provide for 1.5 million homes giving the dramatically lower per capita energy consumption there. Solar is the key though.

[fireofenergy]

12:23 AM on 04/21/2011

Some say negligible, others, Awesome
I say, keep up the good work, and then some!

Drill baby drill (in the U.S. is so PETTY because there ain't enough to lower prices even twenty cents, and if so, would not prolong the global supply by more than just a few months...seriously. What, you thought they would let us hoard it all for ourselves (even though, still wouldn't prolong the supply for more that a year or so)!

Therefore, even if I think they are "ugly", I would still rather have wind and solar farms growing at ever exponentiating (and price decreasing) rates!

[Edward Standley]

05:11 PM on 04/27/2011

Couple years ago, during the big push to open up the ANWR for drilling, I read a report that claimed if every drop of oil were pumped out of the ANWR, it would only supply U.S. needs for 150 days. Simply not worth it.

[iceage7]

07:25 PM on 04/20/2011

How an attempt to pitch a tent turned out to be one of the best wind areas in the world that resulted into a 800million dollar wind farm investment in africa

“For the average wind speed on a European wind farm you are looking at about 6.5 meters per second,” Staubo explains. “On our site the first location we tried was giving off readings of 13 meters per second, which is a little too extreme. We would have never found a manufacturer that was willing to deliver turbines on a site with such wind speeds. So we did some more work and found some better locations in the area, eventually finding the ideal wind farm site with readings that are a bit more humane at 10.8 meters per second. According to our experts this is probably one of the best averages achievable
around the world.”
http://www.africanbusinessreview.co.za/company-reports/winds-change-0?page=1

[Linda P]

10:24 AM on 04/20/2011

On a recent roadtrip through Eastern Washington State and Montana and Idaho we saw numerous wind farms with apparently hundreds if not thousands of windmills ... they we all still and not one of them was being used. Can anyone tell me why?

[Edward Standley]

10:22 PM on 04/22/2011

Some guesses- down for maintenance, project possibly incomplete, work on the grid?

[YoBear]

01:24 AM on 04/20/2011

Yay! A company doing some good! Not all corporations are evil.

[AlbanyConservative]

09:09 PM on 04/19/2011

GE has a steam turbine in Selkirk NY that puts out 125 MW and it is smaller than a school bus. It uses the steam created by two gas turbines as it's fuel.

WE need more turbines like that instead of a 30 mile eyesore that is nowhere near as efficient.

[leftcoastindy]

05:54 PM on 04/20/2011

Does the word fracking come to mind?

[fireofenergy]

12:04 AM on 04/21/2011

Eyesore?
Your little words are more so... lol

[fireofenergy]

12:37 AM on 04/21/2011

Sorry, (I mean that last sentence).
I understand how FF's are so superior, just don't understand what the back up plan is supposed to be if RE (and its storage) isn't "seen" as appropiate?

[scorpioman]

08:36 PM on 04/19/2011

'BOUT TIME!

[Genders]

08:33 PM on 04/19/2011

Great! Rural wind is ok. Offshore is the future of wind. Yet again, I say: this is great!

[mikebreakingwind]

07:52 PM on 04/19/2011

Here is the website I want you the checkout. Please check it everyday, bookmark it, and click on an ad if you feel like it. Thank you all for being such good friends and supporting me. The more traffic you drive to the site by telling your family and friends, the better I can do at this, and the more likely I can get a wind farm built. Thanks for the help guys, and remember, ads aren't bad things to click on, they're good. Just a click every now and then really helps the site stay afloat and the project rolling.

Love you guys,
Mikey

http://breakingwind.blogspot.com/

[timosides]

06:47 PM on 04/19/2011

I can't argue with Private Capital funding these Clean Technology solutions.Brilliant!! This is the kind of cross investment pollination more companies need to do for the chllins and their chillins.