Google joins hunt for cheap renewable energy

Mumbai: Internet search giant and online advertising group Google Inc will spend millions of dollars to help bring down the cost of electricity made from renewable energy below the price of coal.

Under its `Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal'' project, Google is hiring dozens of engineers and targeting investment financing at advanced solar thermal power, wind power, enhanced geothermal systems and other new technologies.

"Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades," Larry Page, Google''s co-founder and president of products, said in a statement.

Google will be a big customer for the project, running computers and networks on the electricity and selling back what''s left to the power grid.
 
Google co-founders, Page and Sergey Brin, said the company may also license any resulting technologies worldwide.

"We see a plausible path to much lower energy costs and we just want to get people working on that now," Page said.

Google Inc ranks as one of Silicon Valley''s biggest energy customers. And as Google grows, "we don''t want our core business to be part of the problem. We want to be part of the solution," said Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org, the company''s philanthropic arm which will direct the energy investments.

Google and its founders are big promoters of electric cars and the roof of its headquarters in Mountain View, California, supports a large solar energy installation.