Many organizations are doing great job in trying to generate economical renewable energies. Google.org too wants to add something that moves these efforts toward even cheaper technologies a bit more quickly. And so recently they have announced about their participation in BrightSource Energy’s $115 million venture financing with a $10 million equity investment. Since Solar thermal energy generation is one of the key emerging industries addressing the changing global climate. From their three investments in alternative energy companies, two of them have been into companies using solar thermal technology, which uses mirrors to turn liquid into steam that drives a turbine, lending support to a burgeoning but unproven industry.
In addition to making investments in renewable energy startups, they also plan to make grants to support the research and development of enabling technologies to help the solar thermal industry achieve larger scale and lower costs. By doing so, they believe that it will accelerate progress and increase the collective economic value of these new clean energy industries.
With climate changing for worst and prices of oil barrels escalating at high speed, scores of new wind, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, and geothermal companies have emerged to take advantage of renewable energy credits and the need for cleaner energy. While wind is further along the commercialization path, its intermittent nature is a major problem for the grid. With nuclear plants looking increasingly expensive and running into production bottlenecks, solar thermal is emerging as a leading alternative to fossil fuel power plants.
