Google Inc. has confirmed plans to contribute funds to a project which is set to lay cables along the ocean floor that connect with a set of power-generating windmills just off the coast of the mid-Atlantic.
The backbone of the so-called Atlantic Wind Connection will go for 350 miles from Virginia to New Jersey and will provide connections for an estimated 6,000 megawatts from offshore wind turbines. The power generation is sufficient to service an approximate 1.9 million US households, and equals roughly 60 percent of the entire wind energy capability installed in the US last year.
In a recent blog entry, Google’s green-business director Rick Needham wrote, "This system will act as a superhighway for clean energy," further saying that the backbone of the project will connect power from offshore wind farms to offshore power hubs, which will then deliver the energy via sea cables to electrical-transmission on shore.
Google has a 37.5 percent stake in the project at its developmental stage, and other investors include US company Good Energies as well as Japanese company Marubeni Corp. While Google haven’t disclosed the cost of the investment, a previous report from the New York Times put the cost of the total project at an estimated $5 billion.
Google has made a number of investments outside its traditional web-domain, with this latest green-energy project coming only two days after the internet giant announced it was investing in technology that enables cars to drive themselves. They have previously invested $40 million in wind farms in North Dakota.
