Google on Monday announced plans to invest in a wind farm initiative that will fund 350 miles worth of wind farms off the East Coast.
The Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) will stretch from New Jersey to Virginia and connect 6,000 MW of offshore wind turbines – enough to service up to 1.9 million households, Google said in a blog post.
The AWC is led by transmission company Trans-Elect, and funded by Google, Good Energies, and Marubeni Corp. Google has thus far put up 37.5 percent of the funds necessary for initial development, though it did not disclose how much that entailed.
"We believe in investing in projects that make good business sense and further the development of renewable energy," wrote Rick Needham, green business operations director at Google. "We're willing to take calculated risks on early stage ideas and projects that can have dramatic impacts while offering attractive returns. This willingness to be ahead of the industry and invest in large scale innovative projects is core to our success as a company."
The backbone of the AWC will be built around offshore power hubs that will collect power from multiple offshore wind farms. The energy will then be transmitted via undersea cables to the most powerful parts of the land-based transmission system.
"By putting strong, secure transmission in place, the project removes a major barrier to scaling up offshore wind, an industry that despite its potential, only had its first federal lease signed last week and still has no operating projects in the U.S.," Needham wrote.
Last week, the Interior Department announced that it had signed its first lease for commercial wind energy on the Outer Continental Shelf with Cape Wind Associates.
Google decided to focus on the Mid-Atlantic region because it is a densely populated area with limited access to high-quality wind power, Needham said. The area also has more shallow water that extends for miles, making it easier to install wind turbines 10 to 15 miles offshore, where they will be less noticeable. The AWC project will also relieve electric grid congestion, Needham asserted.
"These coastal states can take advantage of their most promising renewable resource by using larger wind farms with larger turbines that can take advantage of stronger and steadier winds offshore," he wrote.
In May, Google invested $38.8 million in two North Dakota wind farms. In July, it also announced that it had entered into a 20-year green power purchase agreement with a wind farm in Iowa.