Google goes Solar

By Steve Malone

Posted on 18 Oct 2006 at 10:42

Google is to make a multimillion dollar investment in solar-powered panels to generate electricity for the Googleplex in California.

The company says it will begin installation of 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels at our Mountain View campus 'soon'. The Googlers claim that the project will be the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the US.

The panels will cover the roofs of the four main buildings of the Google Headquarters along with two other buildings. In addition, there are plans to install some of the solar panelling on structures around the car parks.

Google says that the amount of electricity generated will be equivalent to powering about 1,000 average California homes and will be used to power several office facilities, offsetting around 30 per cent of peak electricity consumption at those buildings.

The solar panels will not be able to power the thousands of machines lashed together in the Googleplex to run its search systems. However, Google recently made a plea for a new lower power standard PSU for PCs.

Solar photovoltaic generation is the technology to produce electricity from the sun. A typical PV cell consists of two or more thin layers of semi-conducting material, which is most commonly silicon. An electrical charge is generated when the silicon is exposed to light and is conducted away by metal contacts as direct current (DC).

Although the electrical output from a single cell is small, when multiplied together in their thousands a sizable amount of electrical power can be generated.