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Google buys Altamont wind energy to power Googleplex - San Jose Mercury News http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27503195/google-buys-altamont-wind-energy-...

1 of 14 12/13/15, 1:08 AM

By Matt O'Brien

28 COMMENTS

MORE GOOGLE

Google buys Altamont wind energy topower Googleplex

[email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

POSTED: 02/11/2015 06:00:00 AM PST | UPDATED: 10 MONTHS AGO

(/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=6592927)On a stormy and windy afternoon, Asim Tahir, the Integrated Design Program Manager on Google's real estate team, left, andMeghan Casserly, with Google public relations, have their photo taken while standing next to a large wing turbine at an Altamontwind farm off Dyer Road near Livermore, Calif., on Friday, Feb. 7, 2015. Google has signed an agreement to buy power fromNextEra Energy's Golden Hills Project, that will help provide electricity to the Googleplex and the company's data centers. Theproject will remove the old existing wind turbines to be replaced by 48 new and much larger wind turbines. (Doug Duran/BayArea 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 YouTubeSay hello to the futurecord-cutters of America(/business/ci_29238736/say-hello-future-

...


2 of 14 12/13/15, 1:08 AM

videos and sending emails, but now it's found a powerful

electricity source close to home.

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

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percent renewable power

worldwide.

Last year, it spent $3.2 billion

to acquire Nest Labs, maker of

the slick "learning thermostat."

It also quietly named John

Woolard, the former CEO of

Brightsource, as a vice

president for energy. It has

several previous deals with

NextEra -- for wind farms in Iowa, North Dakota and

Oklahoma -- and recently invested in Utah's largest solar

plant.

But unlike most of those projects, Google's Altamont venture

is more than a capital investment. Just 50 miles from Mountain View, it will do more to

reduce the Googleplex's carbon footprint than any of the quirky projects on the corporate

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(/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=6594124)

campus, from the 1.9-megawatt solar array to the plant fueled

by landfill gas.

Google is the second Silicon Valley tech giant this week to

announce a major local green energy project. On Tuesday,

Apple announced an $850 million agreement to buy power

and help build a 280-megawatt solar farm in Monterey

County.

Google is paying for 50 percent, or nearly 43 megawatts, of the

power that will be produced by harnessing the wind whipping

through NextEra's 7-square-mile Altamont site beginning in

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

agreement.

"Not only do we think renewable energy is important from a climate change perspective, it

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.

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.

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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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• Article commenting rules of the road (/opinion/ci_24039589/article-commenting-rules-road)

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12 of 14 12/13/15, 1:08 AM

28 Comments Mercury News Login!1

Share⤤ Sort by Newest

Join the discussion…

• Reply •

Penny Gray • 18 hours ago

Windmill Free Electric! Stop the Slaughter!

• Reply •

Daniel Cacho • 10 months ago

Great article

• Reply •

Jerry999 • 10 months ago

Another moronic idea from Google. The new wind turbines are bigger with larger bladesto more effectively shred the hawks, owls, etc.

Obama and company granted an exclusion in the plains states to remove the limit ofAmerican eagles shredded each year by those windmills. CA hawks migrate from theBay area using the wind path from the western winds that take them into Altamont passand perfect for windmill shredding.

A 2004 study found that the turbines killed thousands of eagles, hawks, owls and otherbirds each year.1

• Reply •

Kay O. Sweaver • 8 months ago> Jerry999

There are definitely problems with wind turbines, but these are more maturedesigns and will hopefully be less harmful to wildlife. But we also have to look atthis in a broader context, how many animals and people are harmed by pollutionfrom coal power plants?

spec9 • 10 months ago

This is GREAT news. That pass is a great place for a wind farm . . . and that is why therehas been one there for decades. But the old wind turbines are tiny and falling apart. Andmany if not most are broken down. They need to rip out those old ones and install a nicebig farm of brand new big ones.

...

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San Jose, CA | Now: 50° … buys Altamont wind energy to...By Matt O'Brien 28 COMMENTS MORE GOOGLE Google buys Altamont wind energy to power Googleplex [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])