How Google is Driving Solar Innovation (and Not Just By Investing in Start-ups)
Google (GOOG), the Internet search engine giant famous for scouting out and then investing or snapping up start-ups that will grow its core business, has largely used the same approach in its bid to scale up renewable energy. But in the past year, Google has made a shift to in-house cleantech innovation, a move cemented by news that it's hired Philip Gleckman, the chief scientist of solar thermal developer eSolar, according to an exclusive from Green Energy Reporter.
Gleckman has been hired to run Google's in-house development of solar technology and will work with Bill Weihl, Google's green energy czar, according to the GER report. Weihl first talked about Google's in-house ambitions at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit last year when described the company's disappointment with the pitiful lack of breakthroughs in the cleantech sector. At the time, Weihl told Reuters it was working to develop its own mirror technology to reduce the cost of solar thermal plants by 25 percent or more.
But it wasn't clear how serious Weihl or Google really was at trying its hand at materials technology. Then Google went out and confirmed its plan by producing an initial mirror prototype that could cut the cost of building a solar thermal plant in half. At the time, BNET argued Google was driven by a desire to help eSolar and Brightsource, two solar thermal companies that it's invested in. With Gleckman's hiring, it seems as if Google's aspirations have expanded beyond this initial goal.
Gleckman's hiring not only signals that Google is serious about developing solar thermal technology, but marks the rapid expansion of the company's renewable energy goals. It was only three years ago that Google launched RE<C initiative -- renewable energy cheaper than coal -- the starting point of its renewable energy investments under the company's philanthropic arm, Google.org. Since then Google.org has invested in geothermal, wind, solar, plug-in electric cars and launched its free home-energy management software PowerMeter.
On the for-profit side, Google has invested $38.8 million in two wind farms in North Dakota, which I've argued is a calculated business move to learn more about wind energy and transmissions grids and someday find a way to power its data centers.
Photo from eSolar
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