Spinning Spur’s 70, 2.3 MW Siemens turbines started creating power just before the end of 2012, and the energy they create has been contracted to SPS, a utility that primarily serves Texas and New Mexico.

According to a Google blog, Spinning Spur joins 10 other renewable energy investments the organisation has made since 2010, several of which hit significant milestones in the past year:

• The Atlantic Wind Connection received permission to begin permitting, an important step in advancing the construction of the United States’ first offshore backbone electric transmission system (see video here).
• Shepherds Flat, one of the world’s largest wind farms with a capacity of 845 MW, became fully operational in October 2012;
• The Ivanpah project, which is more than 75 percent complete and employs 2,000+ people, recently installed its 100,000th heliostat; (more in this new video).
• Earlier this month, the fourth and final phase of Recurrent Energy's 88MW solar installation in Sacramento County, Calif., reached commercial operation.

Blog: Google's clean energy top ten...