By Simon Jessop and Susanna Twidale
LONDON (Reuters) – Google said it has taken a stake in Taiwanese firm New Green Power and could buy up to 300 megawatts of renewable energy from the BlackRock-owned company to help it and its suppliers cut carbon emissions.
Companies are being pushed by investors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to their operations and value chains, and big tech companies are among the most ambitious targets.
Google aims to run on carbon-free energy everywhere it operates, but the industry’s growing demand for data processing capacity to power artificial intelligence has driven up emissions.
Taiwan, a major site for Google’s cloud technology with a data center and corporate offices, still relies on fossil fuels to generate nearly 85% of its electricity, Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s global head of data center energy, told Reuters.
“The purpose of this investment is really to support the construction of a large-scale solar pipeline in Taiwan,” Corio added.
Regions like Asia-Pacific may be more difficult to decarbonize due to less developed infrastructure and restrictions limiting the ability of business users to purchase green energy.
New Green Power, owned by a fund managed by BlackRock’s Climate Infrastructure division, was one of the leading solar developers and operators in Taiwan, David Giordano, BlackRock’s global head of climate infrastructure, told Reuters.
Google and BlackRock both declined to specify the size of the stake taken in NGP, but Corio said the investment is expected to boost equity and debt financing for the construction of its 1 gigawatt (GW) pipeline.
Taiwan is targeting 20 GW of solar capacity by 2025 and up to 80 GW by 2050, BlackRock said.
Corio said that in addition to using some of the solar power it buys to power its own operations, Google could also offer some to its suppliers and manufacturers in the region.
Sharing with suppliers would help Google reduce its so-called Scope 3 emissions, those linked to its value chain, she added.
(Edited by Alexander Smith)
