Just before Christmas day, Google announced it has made a new $94 million investment in a portfolio of four solar photovoltaic projects currently under construction by Recurrent Energy near Sacramento, CA.

“This investment represents our first investment in the U.S. in larger scale solar PV power plants that generate energy for the grid—instead of on individual rooftops. These projects have a total capacity of 88 MW, equivalent to the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes”, Google said on its blog.

The internet giant said this new investment brings its total alternative energy investments to more than $915 million. In 2011 it helped more than 10,000 homeowners to install solar PV panels on their rooftops.

SunTap energy, a a new venture formed by KKR to invest in solar energy projects in the U.S., will provide the remaining equity.

“We believe investing in the renewable energy sector makes business sense and hope clean energy projects continue to attract new sources of capital to help the world move towards a more sustainable energy future”, Google added.

The energy produced by these projects is contracted for 20 years with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). SMUD recently created a feed-in tariff program to help Sacramento-area residents adopt alternative energy