At an event with President Obama on the future of solar energy, Google announced its Little Box Challenge a competition to build a smaller, cheaper power inverter for use in solar power systems.
While solar panels have become cheaper and more efficient in recent years, it’s hard to say the same for the big costly inverters I.E. the part of the system that converts the DC power from the cells into the AC power that is compatible with the grid.
According to Google "This prize is one of Google’s many efforts to advance a clean energy future. We have a goal of powering our operations with 100% renewable energy, and to that end have contracted over a gigawatt of wind energy for our data centers. Beyond powering our own operations, we’ve also committed over $1 billion to 16 renewable energy projects around the world."
