Google Inc. demonstrated once again that it's not shy about throwing its weight around in non-core business areas while melding business and social policy aspirations, announcing on Tuesday that the company and its philanthropic arm, Google.org, will launch a renewable energy venture.

The company announced a strategic initiative, called RE<C, that will target investments and grants to advance solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and other technologies. The goal: to lessen the dependence on coal for electrical generation. RE<C already is recruiting engineers and energy experts to aim first at solar and geothermal operations The company expects to spend tens of millions of dollars on R&D, and eventually to put hundreds of millions of dollars into commercial projects with expected returns on investment.

Google will draw on its own experience in building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities that it has honed in building its distributed data centers. Co-founder and president of products Larry Page said that experience will allow it to develop alternative-energy sources at costs that are favorable to coal-fired generation. Google also has direct experience in operating a 1.6 megawatt solar panel installation that provides power to its corporate campus.

"Promising technologies already exist that could be developed to deliver renewable energy cheaper than coal," Page wrote in a post on Google's corporate blog. "We think the time is ripe to build rapidly on the tremendous work on renewable energy.

The search giant has set a goal of producing one gigawatt of energy through various projects, and to achieve that within a few years. That number is significant, as it represents about one-fifth of the total power used by servers and associated equipment, as reported by ars technica.

RE<C will be set up as part of the company, but it will work with Google.org to help the philanthropic arm make strategic investments and grants and will work with private companies, R&D laboratories and universities. Google's announcement did not mention how the company might work with venture capitalists in advancing its cleantech ambitions, but Google's original venture capital backers, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, both have active alt-energy investment programs.

Google.org is already working with eSolar Inc., an Idealab Inc.-backed company that is developing power plant-scale solar technology, and Makani Power Inc., a high-altitude wind energy company. - Clifford Carlsen

See Nov. 27 press release from Google

See Nov. 27 post from Larry Page

See February 15 post from ars technica