Google Invests $80 Million to Open 6 Solar Energy Plants

        Google is investing $80 million in 6 new solar plants in California and Arizona that the company says will provide enough electricity for 17,000 homes in the United States. The investment is Google's 14th in renewable energy. The company has so far put more than $1 billion behind solar and wind projects since April 2010. Google is partnering with investment firm KKR for the venture; the lead developer is Recurrent Energy.
       According to a Google blog post, the projects have a combined capacity of 106 megawatts. A typical coal power station produces 600-700 megawatts while a nuclear power plant puts out 900-1,300 megawatts. Google currently gets 33% of its energy from renewable sources, but hopes to be 100% reneawble at some point.

Google itself Helps Solar Energy Project

      Involved in its green energy investments, Google has set its eyes on the Jasper Power Project, a South African solar power plant. This investment alone totals to $12 million and claims to be the first project that Google has invested in, pertaining to the location being Africa. However, the $12 million investment provided by Google is not the total investments spent for South Africa for many investors are involved in this as well.
      The Jasper Power Project will be a photovoltaic plant, which will have the capacity to generate 96 megawatts of clean energy for residents of South Africa. The project will not only help meet the country's renewable energy goals but also provide long-term jobs and economic development opportunities.
     "Back in 2008, South Africa experienced a severe energy shortage, which resulted in blackouts throughout the country and slowed down economic growth," writes Google energy and sustainability director Rick Needman on May 30, 2013. "Since then, the South African government has been actively supporting the growth of new sources of electricity to power the nation ... Given South Africa's position  as an economic powerhouse in Africa, a greener grid in South Africa can set an example for the whole continent."

The Jasper Power Project is located in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, near Potmasburg

Once constructed, the project will use solar panels such as these

Harvesting Electricity Directly from plants?

Researchers from the Universities of Georgia turned their heads towards the inspiration of nature. They are now developing a new technology in ways to generate electricity from plants. Plants are the most assured source for clean energy. Most of them operate at nearly 100 percent efficiency, providing the plant equal amount of electrons from every photons captured from the sun. If converting even a portion of this to electricity would greatly over power every solar panels being made with only 12-17 percent efficiency.

During the process of photosynthesis, plants convert the sunlight captured into water atoms that are split to hydrogen and oxygen which then produces electrons. The plants use these electrons to create natural sugars for in most part uses them much like food to advance towards reproduction and growth.

"We have developed a way to interrupt photosynthesis so that we can capture the electrons before the plant uses them to make these sugars," said Ramasamy, who is also a member of UGA's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center.

In the near future, this technology can well be used in remote sensors or even portable electronics that require fewer power consumption.

"We have discovered something very promising here, and it is certainly worth exploring further," he said. "The electrical output we see now is modest, but only about 30 years ago, hydrogen fuel cells were in their infancy, and now they can power cars, buses and even buildings."

Ramaraja Ramasamy, right, and Yogeswaran Umasankar work together to capture energy created during photosynthesis. Ramasamy is an assistant professor in the UGA College of Engineering and Umasankar is postdoctoral research associate working in his lab. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Georgia)

Robots taking over the world!

Introducing "Qbotix," the world's first monorail robot, equipped with 20 solar panel arrays, trailing behind a small tuna-shaped robot called the "Solbot." Over time, the sun moves 10 degrees in approximately every 40 minutes, decreasing the efficiency of our solar panels that are being engineered today all across the world. So, in order to get the job done more efficiently in harvesting the energy of the sun from sunrise to daybreak, "Qbotix" had designed a robot that moves through steel pipes like a small roller coaster, tracking the position of the sun while moving with it in order to retrieve the most efficiency of the sun without consuming much energy during the process.

A California based startup, Qbotix, has now come up with a robot that does the job efficiently without consuming a lot of energy in the process.

However, here's Germany with their huge robotic arms engineered to install solar panels onto steel racks. This robot is called "Momo" and it could do the work of 250 workers required to build a 100 megawatt photo voltaic power plant. The main idea of this project was to save large amounts of money, mainly towards labor. Towards a construction of a 14 watt solar plant, reports say that the company could cut the cost nearly half of what they had originally paid in which it came up to approximately $2 million in total. 

Renewable robot: A robotic arm places a large photovoltaic panel onto a frame during the construction of a solar plant near Leipzig, Germany. The panel is nearly six square meters in size and weighs 120 kilograms.