Silicon Valley Business Journal: Google Buys Wind to Power Its Headquarters
Google Inc. plans to power its Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View with energy from wind turbines on the Altamont Pass, the Mercury News reported. The wind farm news comes a day after Apple Inc. said it plans to invest $848 million in a solar facility.
Google's 20-year agreement with NextEra Energy commits it to buying half the output from the windmills on Altamont Pass in eastern Alameda and Contra Costa counties. From 2016, that will give Google nearly 43 megawatts of wind energy produced from the 7-square-mile site, the Mercury News said.
Michigan Live: What Happened to Offshore Wind on Lake Michigan?
Visions of large, white wind-energy blades sweeping up the horizon have faded in the five years since a wind farm was proposed for Lake Michigan off the West Michigan coast.
Five years ago, Scandia Wind created quite a stir by proposing a large wind-energy project, generating much discussion and debate in West Michigan, especially in Mason, Oceana, Muskegon and Ottawa counties. After months of talk in 2009 and 2010, the discussion of putting wind turbines in Lake Michigan has been relatively silent since.
Boston Globe: Mass. the Second-Biggest Employer for Solar Power
Massachusetts has surpassed Arizona and New Jersey to become the nation’s second-biggest employer in the solar power industry.
According to a report from the Solar Foundation, which studies and promotes the solar industry, 9,400 people had jobs making, selling, and installing solar power systems in Massachusetts last year. The industry added 3,000 jobs from November 2013 to November 2014, the group said.
Business Report: South Africa's First Nuclear Reactor Delayed Until 2025
The nuclear industry says “political delays” have pushed the completion date for the country’s first new nuclear reactor from 2023 to 2025.
Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa managing director Knox Msebenzi told delegates at the 2nd Nuclear Industry Congress in Africa 2015 in Sea Point on Thursday that the association had met some nuclear vendors wanting to sell their technology to South Africa, and would meet others. The vendors the industry was talking to were Areva, Westinghouse, Rosatom, Kepco (Korea Electric Power Corporation) and China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC).
PV Tech: Japan Solar Impasse Starts to Bite
Recent challenges to large-scale solar in Japan, including disputes over grid connection, appear to be having a tangible effect, with negative impacts reported this week by two major PV companies in their latest financial results.
Japanese thin-film manufacturer Solar Frontier and Norwegian developer, Scatec Solar, both said this week that the decision last year by five of Japan’s utility companies to stop considering large PV projects for connection approval had had damaging consequences.