Corporations Exploring Solar Options

Many companies are viewing solar power technology as a great investment. Just yesterday Google announced that it will begin investing in and exploring solar technology for itself and as a new business. Having worked at Google myself, I was there when they installed all of the new solar panels on the roof of their main building "The Googleplex" in Mountain View California and it was a very exciting event. I was also really impressed when they put panels on all of the car ports and strung down plugs for electric cars! While Google has plenty of money to dabble in these cutting edge technologies, I was surprised to find out they are actually saving money in tax credits.

Other companies are catching on, even in less sunny environments such as Colorado. Sun Microsystems is exploring solar energy for it's Colorado campus and is using Google Maps and Sketchup (a company that started in Boulder Colorado and was recently acquired by Google) to map out what it would look like. You can see their solar panel configuration proposal in the video below.

As it relates to consumers, several new companies are coming forward to help provide solar technology to homeowners who are interested but can't necessarily afford it. One company, Citizenre, has announced plans to build a large manufacturing plant to lower the cost of panels which it then plans to rent at the same monthly price that users already pay for dirty energy off the grid. As Google looks towards the solar panel industry and several companies are seeing huge profits (as this article in Bloomberg attests) people are lining up to reserve a spot with the REnU system from Citizenre.