Google seems to be on a serious renewable energy roll this month. After the recent announcement to invest $5 million in renewable energy in Germany, this week out came an announcement that the web giant has partneredwith the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable EnergyLaboratory and more than 80 stakeholders to use Google Maps as aplatform to give up-to-date information on the location of ElectricVehicle (EV) charging stations across the country.

The partnership is part of the Department of Energy’s drive to promote electric vehicles. For that purpose, it recently made available $5 million in new fundingfor community-based efforts to deploy EV infrastructure and chargingstations. The announcement was made by Secretary Chu and TransportationSecretary Ray LaHood during a conference call with Colorado GovernorJohn Hickenlooper, Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup, and St. Paul MayorChristopher Coleman, who are leaders of three of the nation’s nearly 100 Clean Cities Coalitions.

As we have previously reported here, electric vehicles have becomemore popular with the launch of models such as the Nissan Leaf andFord’s Focus. Initiatives like this are consistent with market changestowards a greener transport network and part of a wider move to reduceU.S. oil imports by one-third by 2025.

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