Google is buying a stake in a Taiwanese solar company owned by BlackRock

Authors: Simon Jessop and Susanna Twidale

LONDON (Reuters) – Google said it had acquired a stake in Taiwanese company New Green Power and may buy up to 300 megawatts of renewable energy from the BlackRock-owned company to cut its own carbon emissions and those of its suppliers.

Investors are pushing companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their operations and value chains, and Big Tech companies are among the most ambitious in their targets.

Google intends to continue using carbon-free energy wherever it operates. But the growing demand for processing power to power AI has driven up emissions.

Taiwan, the main location of Google’s cloud technology, with the company’s data center and offices, still relies on fossil fuels to generate almost 85% of its energy, Amanda Peterson Corio, global director of data center energy at Google, told Reuters.

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

Decarbonizing regions such as Asia-Pacific may be more challenging due to less developed infrastructure and constraints limiting the ability of corporate users to purchase green energy.

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

Both Google and BlackRock declined to say how much they own in NGP, but Corio said the investment is expected to provide equity and debt financing for the construction of a 1 gigawatt (GW) gas pipeline.

Taiwan aims to use 20 GW of solar capacity by 2025, and even 80 GW by 2050, BlackRock reported.

In addition to using some of the purchased solar energy to power its own operations, Corio said Google will also be able to offer it to its suppliers and manufacturers in the region.

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

(Editing by Alexander Smith)