Google Ramps up Renewable Energy Investments

Last year, Google said it planned to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to help develop renewable energy sources that could compete with coal-fired power plants. The company elaborated on that plan this week, by announcing it will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in commercial alternative-energy projects that traditionally have had trouble getting financing.

The Google investment is aimed at helping promising green energy technology companies prove their stuff on a larger scale. The stage between successfully developing a new technology and amassing scale is often referred in the industry as the "Valley of Death," said Dan Reicher, Google’s executive in charge of its green-energy program.

Google has already committed $20 million to funding start-up firms researching solar-thermal and high-altitude wind power. It’s also considering investments in enhanced geothermal systems, which create power by pumping water into hot rocks in the ground rather than harvesting hot water already there.

More than any technology company on the planet right now, Google understands how to successfully scale up a business. Let’s hope their business savvy will translate to the renewable energy scene, where it can take hundreds of millions of dollars to set up plants that are big enough to prove a new technology.