BP America is planning to open an office for its alternative energy division in San Francisco, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
The company is considering several locations in San Francisco to house its new office, BP Alternative Energy, which started in 2005 and is headquartered in Houston, BP spokeswoman Sarah Howell said.
The company has been steadily growing its presence in Northern California, though it doesn’t have BP-branded gas stations in that market, the publication reported.
In 2007, BP seeded the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley with $500 million to develop biofuels, with partners including the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
BP Alternative Energy includes BP’s efforts in solar, wind, hydrogen power, low and zero-carbon power generation, natural gas-fired power plants, biofuels and distributed energy for emerging markets. The company said in 2007 it will invest up to $8 billion in alternative energy businesses over the next 10 years.
