Google investing $280 million in solar

Google said Tuesday it is investing $280 million to help finance home solar projects in the Internet giant's largest effort yet to promote clean energy. Google said the money will go to create a fund that will help SolarCity, a company which provides solar energy options for homeowners and businesses, to finance more solar installations across the United States. "This is our largest clean energy project investment to date and brings our total invested in the clean energy sector to more than $680 million," said Rick Needham, Google's director of green business operations. "We continue to look for other renewable energy investments that make business sense and help develop and deploy cleaner sources of energy," he wrote in a blog post. He said Google had also entered into a partnership with SolarCity to provide solar power to the homes of Google employees at a discount. Google last month announced a $55 million investment in a California wind energy farm, and in April, the Mountain View, California-based company announced a $100 million investment in a wind farm being built in Oregon. Google in April also said it has invested $168 million to help complete the construction of one of the world's biggest solar power plants in California's Mojave Desert.