All the media fuss and furore over the Nexus 1 phone from Google has (whether deliberately or not) diverted attention from a more interesting development from everybody’s favourite nominal monopoly: they’ve started a new subsidiary company and applied to the FTC for Google Energy to become an energy trader, able to buy and sell energy in the wholesale supplier-level markets.

This isn’t Google’s first foray into the energy business, and it’s not exactly surprising that a company which depends on electricity to keep its services up and running should be looking at ways of cutting costs – not to mention potentially selling back their own excess production onto the grid, should they find themselves with watts to spare. The Big G claims that it has no interest in becoming the next Enron, however; their broker status would enable them to pick and choose from renewable energy sources rather than the fossil-based stuff that most regular businesses have to buy, and that’s their main motivation. [all links via SlashDot]

Even so, one can’t help but think that the energy market is going to become very competitive and dynamic in the next few decades, and that having one’s toe in the door from the outset would be a sensible move for a company with long vision…