Concerted efforts towards achieving one's goals is critical to achieve progress. The first step for achieving any goal is to have a proper definition of the goal. To set a clear goal based on sustainable principles (instead of short-term profits), one needs vision. That vision is clearly lacking for Indian companies as far as renewable energy/technology implementation is concerned.
If Indian companies are looking for inspiration, they need not look beyond the following renewable energy initiatives by Google.
- Google clearly says that it's goal is to power the whole company using 100% renewable energy, whether by implementing renewable energy technologies in their campus or by buying power from companies who generate power using renewable energy technologies.
- When a company like Google gets into the renewable energy bandwagon, it's clearly not for social/environmental reasons alone. They know there is good profit in renewable energy technologies and they know that their investments today will pay off handsomely on the long run. Renewable energy has serious business advantages and can make real money for companies. Indian companies fail to look beyond their closed mindsets on this issue.
- Google says that they use renewable energy to power 30% of their operations. Knowing that Google is no small company, one can imagine the scope of their renewable energy investments.
- Google installed an 1.7 MW solar panel system in 2007 and they are expecting the system to pay back within 6-7 years. After the payback period, all the electricity generated by this system is available practically free of cost to power their operations.
- Google has installed solar water heating systems across their world-wide offices in Mountain View (US), Hyderabad (India) and Tel Aviv (Israel).
- Google has installed ground source heat pumps in their campus to take advantage of geo thermal heat energy stored inside the earth.
- In addition to installing tried-and-tested renewable energy technologies, Google is open to being a test bed for new renewable energy technologies. For example, they were the first vendor to test fuel cells based on bio-gas, and they tested it in their own campus.
- Google has certain long-term (20 year) power purchase agreements in place with power plants that generate electricity using wind-energy. A firm long-term commitment gives stability and assured income to renewable energy power plants which they can reinvest to generate even more electricity using renewable technologies.
- Google has explored agreements with their existing utilities to supply clean power, instead of power generated by oil, coal, etc.
- Google has made significant investments in renewable energy projects initiated by third-party companies in areas like solar photovoltaic, solar concentrated, rooftop solar, wind, etc.
Why haven't Indian companies done anything close to what Google has done? This, in spite of India having clear advantages in location, manpower and scale for renewable energy technologies!
