Since 2010, the search engine giant Google have signed more than 30 solar and wind projects across the Americas and Europe, making the company one of the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy. Now the company has added a fourth continent Asia to its clean energy portfolio.
Google signed a long-term agreement to purchase the output of a 10-megawatt solar array (which is part of a larger solar farm) in Tainan City, Taiwan.
This deal is a result of collaboration between Google, industry stakeholders and the Taiwanese government—which recently amended Taiwan’s Electricity Act to allow non-utility companies to directly buy renewable energy and decrease their carbon footprints.
With 40,000 solar panels, the solar project in Taiwan is located 100 kilometers south of company’s Changhua County data center and connected to the same regional power grid.
The solar power project has been developed by Diode Ventures, Taiyen Green Energy , J&V Energy and New Green Power.
The project have a unique design and community impact: poles are mounted into commercial fishing ponds to elevate solar panels several feet into the sky.
The setup will maximize land-use efficiency (important in a densely populated region), respect local ecology (fish and solar panels can coexist peacefully), and generate local economic benefits (the fishing community will be compensated for hosting solar panels on its ponds).