4 ms·

First, a 50MW farm is only ~25 turbines which is small for industry standards. I have been on top of wind turbines in farms of hundreds of turbines surrounded

First, a 50MW farm is only ~25 turbines which is small for industry standards. I have been on top of wind turbines in farms of hundreds of turbines surrounded by other windfarms of the same size. I use to inspect wind turbine blades using Industrial Rope Access. Second, Google benefits a few ways with this and other renewable investments, mainly for the Production Tax Credit or PTC. A federal incentive program to develop the wind energy industry that is equivalent to $02.2 per kWh of production. A 50MW farm running at 30% will produce ~130M kWh per year or $3M/year in PTC. Google is doing three things at once, reducing their tax liability, diversifying their portfolio and advertising the Google Brand. This has nothing to do with powering their own data centers and might even take the focus off of them using dirty energy to power their data centers.

ajross 14y ago
I don't understand the last clause. Yes, Google uses "dirty energy" in many data centers because they're connected to grids without direct "clean energy" feeds. But electricity is near-perfectly fungible. If you care about "clean" energy at all, your goal should be increasing the supply anywhere -- what's the difference to an environmentalist if that 50MW goes to a Google-owned data center or just a local housing development? How does it make it "less good" of Google to have built those turbines?
- bcoates 14y ago
  Electricity isn't very fungible at all, at least across space and time: It is expensive to transport and almost impossible to store. The limiting resource on power production is facilities, not fuel. Any electrical power source that doesn't displace a power plant is a toy.
  - ajross 14y ago
    No, that's a very commonly stated point, and it's completely wrong from the perspective of someone trying to reduce carbon output. Solar usually gets this criticism more than wind, so let's use that: the argument goes that you need enough power generating capacity to handle peak usage, but of course solar only works in the day. So if your peak usage happens at night (it doesn't, but let's assume) then the solar panels have "displaced zero power plants". But who cares? If you have them built, then during the day the solar plants are operating and generating (much cheaper, looking only at marginal costs) power. And the coal and gas plants, by virtue of having higher marginal costs, are idle. And at night the fossil plants fire back up and do what they were doing before. So the net effect, assuming excess solar capacity, is that carbon output has been reduced by a factor of two (actually a bit more than two in practice). And of course then the market will accomodate, such that "day power" being available in higher quantity and with higher excess capacity becomes cheaper and "night power" more expensive. So the legacy coal plants will probably still even make money as they're selling into a "premium" market. So... how is solar (or wind) a toy in that scenario?
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    There is an interesting factoid that hasn't popped out of this discussion, Google is a power company [1]. They did this for a number of reasons, but one of the benefits is that they get to play in the slush pond of kilowatts. Energy companies 'trade' energy (because as ajross points out it is sometimes in the wrong place at the wrong time) kind of like Internet providers 'trade' bandwidth. As licensed energy provider Google and trade wind kilowatts in Iowa for coal kilowatts in Georgia. Its a great way to 'hack' the fact that transmission costs and land costs make it hard to build renewables near your data center. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&tkr=ENRNQ:US&sid=aeG1mbB20HJY http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&tkr=E...
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
Yes, the wind farm outside Indianapolis must be several hundreds of turbines. Possibly into the thousands, it goes on for many miles in all directions. I've driven through it several times and it always creeps me out, the most alien thing I've experienced.
- startupfounder 14y ago
  Usually, and this is not always the case, many different developers build side by side with each other. You can tell by looking at the nacelle and blades of the turbine to see the variations in design. I was on a turbine in West Texas and all I could see was wind turbines as far as the eye could see to the horizon.

ajross 14y ago

I don't understand the last clause. Yes, Google uses "dirty energy" in many data centers because they're connected to grids without direct "clean energy" feeds. But electricity is near-perfectly fungible. If you care about "clean" energy at all, your goal should be increasing the supply anywhere -- what's the difference to an environmentalist if that 50MW goes to a Google-owned data center or just a local housing development? How does it make it "less good" of Google to have built those turbines?

bcoates 14y ago
Electricity isn't very fungible at all, at least across space and time: It is expensive to transport and almost impossible to store. The limiting resource on power production is facilities, not fuel. Any electrical power source that doesn't displace a power plant is a toy.
- ajross 14y ago
  No, that's a very commonly stated point, and it's completely wrong from the perspective of someone trying to reduce carbon output. Solar usually gets this criticism more than wind, so let's use that: the argument goes that you need enough power generating capacity to handle peak usage, but of course solar only works in the day. So if your peak usage happens at night (it doesn't, but let's assume) then the solar panels have "displaced zero power plants". But who cares? If you have them built, then during the day the solar plants are operating and generating (much cheaper, looking only at marginal costs) power. And the coal and gas plants, by virtue of having higher marginal costs, are idle. And at night the fossil plants fire back up and do what they were doing before. So the net effect, assuming excess solar capacity, is that carbon output has been reduced by a factor of two (actually a bit more than two in practice). And of course then the market will accomodate, such that "day power" being available in higher quantity and with higher excess capacity becomes cheaper and "night power" more expensive. So the legacy coal plants will probably still even make money as they're selling into a "premium" market. So... how is solar (or wind) a toy in that scenario?
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  There is an interesting factoid that hasn't popped out of this discussion, Google is a power company [1]. They did this for a number of reasons, but one of the benefits is that they get to play in the slush pond of kilowatts. Energy companies 'trade' energy (because as ajross points out it is sometimes in the wrong place at the wrong time) kind of like Internet providers 'trade' bandwidth. As licensed energy provider Google and trade wind kilowatts in Iowa for coal kilowatts in Georgia. Its a great way to 'hack' the fact that transmission costs and land costs make it hard to build renewables near your data center. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&tkr=ENRNQ:US&sid=aeG1mbB20HJY http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&tkr=E...

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

Yes, the wind farm outside Indianapolis must be several hundreds of turbines. Possibly into the thousands, it goes on for many miles in all directions. I've driven through it several times and it always creeps me out, the most alien thing I've experienced.

startupfounder 14y ago
Usually, and this is not always the case, many different developers build side by side with each other. You can tell by looking at the nacelle and blades of the turbine to see the variations in design. I was on a turbine in West Texas and all I could see was wind turbines as far as the eye could see to the horizon.