Google will buy 300 megawatts of green energy from a Taiwanese company backed by BlackRock

Google recently announced an investment project in Taiwan’s New Green Power, backed by Blackrock. The tech giant also plans to buy up to 300 megawatts of renewable energy from the company to reduce its own carbon emissions and those of its suppliers.

The development comes as companies face growing pressure from investors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their operations and supply chains, with big tech companies setting some of the most ambitious goals for a green future, according to a Reuters report.

Google aims to operate entirely on carbon-free energy across all of its locations, but the growing demand for processing power resulting from the increased use of artificial intelligence has made that ambitious path a bit rocky.

Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s global director of data center energy, said in a report that Taiwan, which is a key location for Google’s cloud technology that includes the company’s data center and offices, still accounts for almost 85% of its energy generation based on fuels fossil .

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

Neither Google nor BlackRock disclosed the size of their stakes in New Green Power (NGP), but Corio said the investment would likely support equity and debt financing needed to build NGP’s 1 gigawatt (GW) pipeline.

Taiwan currently plans to reach 20 GW of photovoltaic capacity by 2025 and 80 GW by 2050. Corio added that Google reportedly plans to use some of the purchased solar power to support its own operations and supply some to its suppliers and manufacturers in the region.