Google acquires second wind farm in Sweden

Google Inc. has confirmed its positions in the green energy business for third time in three months, with a deal to acquire all the electricity generated by four wind farms located in Sweden for a decade. The transaction seems to be similar to the one sealed between the company and Nordic wind developer O2 seven months ago, which was concerning the power produced by a 24-turbine wind farm in northern Sweden for ten years.

Nokia has not disclosed any financial terms of the deals. This move comes only a month after the company agreed to make a 75-million-dollar investment in a Texas wind farm, as well as two months after it spent almost 80 million dollars to six utility-scale solar plants in California and Arizona. The construction of four new wind farms located in southern Sweden are said to be financed by Nokia. The project is expected to become fully operational in early 2015.

Google has invested more than 1 billion dollars in total in wind and solar projects in recent years, while trying to increase the renewable energy growth and generate profit.

The Director of global infrastructure of the company – Francois Sterin, said in a statement cited by the Financial Times: “Were always looking for ways to increase the amount of renewable energy we use. Long-term power purchase agreements enable wind farm developers to add new generation capacity to the grid, which is good for the environment, but they also make great financial sense for companies like Google.”

No matter that Google Inc. will not use the electricity produced by the wind farms in Sweden directly itself, the company emphasizes on the fact that the farms in question are expected to generate the same amount of power that Google uses at its Hamina data centre in Finland, which is going through a 450-million-Euro expansion in order to triple its size.

According to CNN Money, the current share price of Google Inc. is 0.26% up, and its one-year return rate is 3.57% up. The 40 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Google Inc. have a median target of 1,173.50, with a high estimate of 1,350.00 and a low estimate of 850.00. The median estimate represents a +1.10% increase from the last price of 1,160.69.