Google partners with Blackrock, invests in Taiwanese solar pipeline

Google has partnered with Blackrock’s Climate Infrastructure division to support the development of one gigawatt (GW) of new solar energy capacity in Taiwan.

As part of the partnership, Google said in a statement that it is investing capital in New Green Power (NGP), a Taiwanese solar developer and portfolio company of BlackRock, to facilitate the expansion of its large-scale solar development program.

Google said its investment in NGP, which is subject to regulatory approval, will serve as growth capital toward its 1-GW pipeline of new solar projects, catalyzing key equity and debt financing for those projects. The company expects to acquire up to 300 megawatts (MW) of solar power from the pipeline through power purchase agreements (PPAs) and related energy attribute certificates (Taiwan Renewable Energy Certificates or T-RECs) to help meet electricity demand from its data center campus, cloud region, and office operations in Taiwan.

The move enables the tech giant to achieve its goal of achieving net zero emissions across all its operations and value chains by 2030, as well as its next goal of running 24/7 on carbon-free energy across every grid it operates on.

Google noted that Taiwan sources nearly 85 percent of its electricity from imported coal and natural gas, as many countries in the Asia-Pacific region struggle with land constraints, low availability of commercially scalable wind and solar resources, and high construction costs. The company said that to achieve its goals, its plans include “creating new clean energy opportunities in regions that are early in their decarbonization journey and have power grids that are underserved by carbon-free energy.”

Google said it could also offer some of this clean energy to its suppliers and semiconductor manufacturers in the region so they can meet their own sustainability goals while helping us reduce scope 3 emissions, or indirect emissions, from its value chain.

The partnership with Blackrock builds on more than five years of collaboration aimed at accelerating the transition to clean energy through market and policy development in the Asia-Pacific region, Google said. The company said its advocacy and engagement efforts were a key driver of the 2017 amendment to Taiwan’s Electricity Law, which opened up the market to allow non-utility companies to directly purchase renewable energy, and led to it becoming the first corporate buyer to sign a PPA in the market. Since then, Taiwan has achieved significant cumulative contracted capacity through corporate PPAs, becoming one of the leading corporate PPA markets in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a statement.

BlackRock’s Global Head of Climate Infrastructure David Giordano said: “As demand for digital services grows, driven by AI and data-centric technologies, investing in clean energy becomes imperative. This partnership demonstrates Google and BlackRock’s shared commitment to driving the transition to a low-carbon economy.”

In February, Google partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to create the MethaneSAT satellite, which will be able to map, measure, and track methane levels around the world.

MethaneSAT has the ability to monitor both high-emission methane sources and small sources spread over a wide area, according to the release. It is designed to measure regions at intervals of less than seven days, regularly monitoring about 50 major regions, accounting for more than 80 percent of global oil and gas production, according to an earlier press release.

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