The solar farm by Google would be constructed in partnership with Diode and New Green Power
Alphabet’s Google made an announced to launch a solar energy project in Taiwan with an intention to support its local data center. The announcement comes after the Taiwanese government changed the country’s Electricity Act to allow non-utility companies to directly buy renewable energy. Moreover, the project outcome is the result of months of negotiations with the Taiwanese government and other local organizations. With this project, Google is the first non-utility company to do so in Taiwan.
Reportedly, Google will be working with its development partners Diode and New Green Power to set up a 10-megawatt solar farm in Tainan City, Taiwan. The project site is located at 100 kilometers south of Google’s Changhua County data center and connected to the same regional power grid.
What Google gets
As an outcome of the investment, the tech giant will get a long-term fixed price for electricity at the Taiwan location, and will also enable the company to move towards its goal of powering all of its data centers with renewable energy, around the clock.
Google’s first clean energy project in Asia
Having signed onto more than 30 solar and wind deals in the Americas and Europe since 2010, Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy. In addition, the Taiwanese project marks its first clean energy project in Asia.
Google’s announcement of the largest solar deal
Along with its Taiwan deal, Google has also announced its largest solar deal to date: two major solar farms in Tennessee and Alabama.
Joe Kava, VP, Data Centers, Google, said, “Both of these deals are proof points to our commitment to building out the most reliable and largest network in the world but also doing it in the most sustainable fashion.” He added, “We’re responding to the growth of our public cloud demand, but we’re doing it in a totally sustainable way.”Joe said, both the Taiwanese market and the Southeastern US region “were pretty tough nuts to crack” for their own reasons.
About the plant
In addition to its plant set up, Google hopes to see other companies invest in green energy and thereby drive the development of larger projects. At the Tainan City site, Google and its developers have planned to set up 40,000 solar panels, mounted on poles above commercial fishing ponds. According to Google, setting up the farm this way maximizes land use, it benefits to the fishing community that will be compensated for the land use, and it ensures the local ecology won’t be disrupted.
