Google buys stake in Taiwanese solar company owned by BlackRock

By Simon Jessop and Susanna Twidale

LONDON (Reuters) – Google said it has acquired a stake in Taiwan’s New Green Power and may buy up to 300 megawatts of renewable energy from the BlackRock-owned company to help reduce its carbon emissions and those of suppliers.

Companies are under pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operations and value chains by investors, and big technology companies have been among the most ambitious in their goals.

Google aims to constantly run on carbon-free energy wherever it operates. However, the sector’s growth in demand for data processing capacity to power artificial intelligence has caused emissions to increase.

Taiwan, a key location for Google’s cloud technology with a data center and company offices, still relies on fossil fuels to generate nearly 85% of its energy, said Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s global head of data center energy. , to Reuters.

“The purpose of this investment is to actually support the construction of a large-scale solar pipeline in Taiwan,” Corio added.

Regions such as Asia-Pacific may be more difficult to decarbonize due to less developed infrastructure and restrictions that limit the ability of business users to purchase green energy.

New Green Power, owned by a fund managed by BlackRock’s climate infrastructure business, was one of the leading developers and operators of solar power in Taiwan, BlackRock’s global head of climate infrastructure David Giordano told Reuters.

Google and BlackRock declined to specify the size of the equity stake acquired in NGP, but Corio said the investment is expected to boost equity and debt financing for the construction of its 1 gigawatt (GW) gas 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 energy it purchases to power its own operations, Google will also be able to offer some to its suppliers and manufacturers in the region.

Sharing with suppliers would help Google reduce so-called Scope 3 emissions, those linked to its value chain, she added.

(Edited by Alexander Smith)