News

Google Retires Solar Power Tower Research Initiative, Citing Plunging PV Prices

Google, the Internet search giant that has invested millions in solar power technology, last week quietly abandoned a four-year-old project to make renewable power cheaper than coal-fired power. The company, which cited the recent dramatic decline of photovoltaic panel prices and design limitations, said other institutions were “better positioned” to take research to the “next level.”

Google’s Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative, launched in 2007, was primarily an effort to drive down the cost of renewable power with a focus on solar power technology. Announcing it was ending the program on its official blog, the firm last week also published results from its research “to help others in the field continue to advance the state of power tower technology.”

Through the program, Google said it had made several investments in companies working on “breakthrough” technologies, sinking $168 million in projects such as Brightsource Energy’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, a 392-MW solar power tower in the Mojave Desert that is expected to be completed in 2013. Other investments went to eSolar to help expand work on solar power tower technology, and in Potter Drilling to advance its geothermal drilling technology. The company also sponsored research to develop the first Geothermal Map of the US.

Work on solar power technology focused on reducing costs associated with heliostats and reducing the cost and water consumption of solar power tower. “We’re excited that some technologies are so quickly approaching cost competitiveness with traditional forms of energy in parts of the US and the world,” Google said.

“Power tower technology has come a long way, too. But the installed cost of solar photovoltaic technology has declined dramatically over the past few years, making solar photovoltaic technology a compelling choice for consumers.”

Several companies in recent months have canceled concentrating solar power projects or switched them to photovoltaic technology as a result of the plummeting cost of photovoltaic panels.

Google said another reason it nixed the program was that it had reached a point in its engineering projects where it was “facing new challenges related to [its] solar receiver design.”

In its published results, the company said key ways to reduce the overall cost of a concentrating solar power system included using lower cost materials and smarter software controls. Its research also showed that using a Brayton engine—a jet engine that uses solar energy to heat air and does not require spray cooling with water— significantly reduces water use and could also reduce operating costs. A system-level approach to designing concentrating solar systems could also reduce the cost of power generated when compared to optimizing each individual component, it said.

The end the RE<C program was announced along with the cancellation of several other Google initiatives—including Google Search Timeline, Knol, a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia—as part of the company’s “off-season spring cleaning” efforts.

“To recap, we’re in the process of shutting a number of products which haven’t had the impact we’d hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward,” blogged Google Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Holzle.

SHARE this article