Google Building Second Wind Farm In Texas

Google on Tuesday announced it would make its second investment in wind energy in Texas with a $75 million development project in Carson County called the Panhandle 2. The company had also announced last year a $200 million investment in a wind farm about 35 miles outside Amarillo.

TechCrunch reports that financing for the project is being handled through Morgan Stanley, while a company called Pattern Energy and a trio of tax equity investors will eventually take over the wind farm once construction is finished.

“It sure is windy in Texas. So windy, in fact, that we’ve made another wind energy investment there. In late December we finalized an agreement to invest $75 million in the Panhandle 2 wind farm in Carson County, outside of Amarillo,” the company wrote in a Google blog post. “The 182MW facility, developed by leading wind developer Pattern Energy Group LP, has the capacity to generate enough renewable energy to power 56,000 U.S. homes. We expect the facility to be operational by the end of 2014.”

Google has made no secret of its interest in renewable energy. Following the return of Larry Page as CEO, the company has pushed forward with a number of alternate-energy initiatives and R&D projects. All together, Google says it has now made fifteen separate investments into alternative energy and cumulatively generates 2 GW of clean power.

“Panhandle 2 is our 15th renewable energy investment overall, and our second in Texas—last year around this time we announced an approximately $200 million investment in the Spinning Spur wind farm. In addition to these two projects, we’re also buying Texas wind from the Happy Hereford wind farm as part of our goal of operating on 100 percent renewable energy. These efforts reflect our long-standing commitment to renewable energy as both an investor and a consumer,” the company said.