[There has been a lot of speculation on Google’s energy plans. While I believe Google’s plans at this point in time are quite modest, they may be laying the groundwork for a much larger push into the renewable energy market. Like other companies Google is always seeking new revenue opportunities. The energy market is orders of magnitude larger than the advertising market – capturing a small percentage of this market would represent billions of dollars in revenue. Although Google is now registered to buy and sell electricity in the wholesale market, it has not yet ventured into the retail electricity market. Unfortunately in the US the retail electricity market is extremely fragmented as the retail market is regulated by state PUCs. The market is also characterized with many small companies with shady business practices, so it is ripe for domination by a large company with global recognized brand name recognition. Google has all the tools to market and easily capture customers in this market including its home energy management system. Many energy resellers offer various incentives for customers to purchase energy from their company such as free furnace cleaning, free long distance, etc. Google has the opportunity to offer a host of possible products and services including the possibility of free broadband or free fiber to the home. Given their FTTH pilot program it might be a nice fits with their energy plans. For more thoughts on this subject please see http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/--BSA]
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/googles-energy-foray-whats-up/
Google’s Energy Foray: What’s Up?
Google is explicit about its mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Now it is laying out plans to become a leader in capturing, owning, tracking and trading energy. Recently the company announced a $38.8 million investment in two wind farm projects in North Dakota, …
Google also won federal approval in February to buy and sell electricity on American electricity markets. And the company offers tools for measuring the electricity consumption of home appliances through partnerships with companies like General Electric.
Connect the dots, and Google is up to something, said Tim Stephure, an analyst at IHS Emerging Energy Research, a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass. “They are increasingly trying to be a bigger player in this space,” he said.
But how these energy investments will fit into the company’s broader mission to use data is hard to say. “It is difficult to see what their intentions are,” Mr. Stephure said.
It’s possible that greater access to data on consumer energy usage could prove as valuable as the keywords in Gmail or in Google search are in matching advertisers.
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email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
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This blog is about using ICTs to develop climate change preparedness solutions built around Energy Internet and autonomous eVehicles
Energy Internet and eVehicles Overview
Governments around the world are wrestling with the challenge of how to prepare society for inevitable climate change. To date most people have been focused on how to reduce Green House Gas emissions, but now there is growing recognition that regardless of what we do to mitigate against climate change the planet is going to be significantly warmer in the coming years with all the attendant problems of more frequent droughts, flooding, sever storms, etc. As such we need to invest in solutions that provide a more robust and resilient infrastructure to withstand this environmental onslaught especially for our electrical and telecommunications systems and at the same time reduce our carbon footprint.
Using autonomous eVehicles for Renewable Energy Transportation and Distribution: http://goo.gl/bXO6x and http://goo.gl/UDz37
Free High Speed Internet to the Home or School Integrated with solar roof top: http://goo.gl/wGjVG
High level architecture of Internet Networks to survive Climate Change: https://goo.gl/24SiUP
Architecture and routing protocols for Energy Internet: http://goo.gl/niWy1g
How to use Green Bond Funds to underwrite costs of new network and energy infrastructure: https://goo.gl/74Bptd