Google (News - Alert) Inc., the mother of all Internet search engines, is joining global investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) and solar developer Recurrent Energy Inc. in “begetting” four California solar farms that will provide enough clean power for about 13,000 U.S. homes.  The price tag (News - Alert) for Google, alone, will be $94 million.

Construction on three of the Sacramento-area projects will be completed by Recurrent Energy — a U.S.-based unit of Japan’s Sharp (News - Alert) Corp.— early in 2012, with the fourth coming online later in the year. The projects will provide a total 88 megawatts (MW) of capacity, or nearly 160 million kilowatt hours (kWh), in their first year of operation.

This is the first investment in utility scale, grid-connected photovoltaic solar power by Google, which on its blog revealed that it has invested about $915 million in renewable-energy projects to date—and more than $880 million of that figure, since last January.  

It also is the first U.S. cleantech investment for KKR, which has formed SunTap Energy RE LLC solely for the purpose of investing in North America-based solar projects.

“The investment is a clear demonstration of solar's ability to attract private capital from well-established investors like Google and KKR,” said Arno Harris, CEO of Recurrent Energy. “This transaction provides an example of the direction solar is headed as a viable, mainstream part of our energy economy.”

The plants will generate cash from power sales to the public utility, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), which will pay for the generated electricity at above-market rates as part of a feed-in tariff program that began this year. The 20-year contracts of the program offer 7.5 cents to 27.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on the time of delivery

“Google's commitment to clean energy continues to be a core value for the company,” said Axel Martinez, assistant treasurer for the company. “Over the past 18 months, Google has made investments in the sector that not only help deploy hundreds of megawatts of sustainable power, but also enable new and exciting business opportunities. We're excited to be supporting KKR's entrance into the renewable energy sector in the United States. We hope the sector continues to attract new sources of capital.”

“Recurrent Energy is a leading solar developer and Google embodies innovation,” said Raj Agrawal, head of KKR's North American Infrastructure team. “We couldn't be more thrilled to partner with these two leaders to serve SMUD (News - Alert) with a substantial and reliable new source of renewable energy and to contribute to our country's vast growth in clean energy resources.”

SunTap is KKR's third renewable energy investment in 2011. Other recent transactions include investments in Sorgenia, a French wind park operator and T-Solar, a solar energy company in Spain. Over the last year, KKR has made five infrastructure investments, which, with the creation of SunTap, total over $1.5 billion in invested capital.

To establish SunTap, KKR committed a $95 million line of equity, a portion of which will be drawn for this investment. The rest of the equity will be invested in similar projects.