OMNI Features｜Google Buys Stake in Taiwan Solar Power Firm Owned by BlackRock．South Korea's Largest Jeju Hallim Offshore Wind Project Halted Due to Lack of Cultural Heritage Investigation
OMNI Features｜Google Buys Stake in Taiwan Solar Power Firm Owned by BlackRock．South Korea's Largest Jeju Hallim Offshore Wind Project Halted Due to Lack of Cultural Heritage Investigation
(Source: iStock)
｜Google Buys Stake in Taiwan Solar Power Firm Owned by BlackRock
Google has announced its investment in Taiwan's new green energy sector, planning to purchase up to 300 MW of renewable energy from New Green Power, a solar company under BlackRock Global Fund. This initiative aims to reduce carbon emissions from both Google and its suppliers. The investment targets the construction of large-scale solar facilities in Taiwan, where approximately 85% of the electricity still relies on fossil fuels.
Investors are pushing companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with technology giants being particularly attentive. Google's goal is to operate entirely on carbon-free energy globally. However, the increasing demand for data processing by AI technology has led to a rise in carbon emissions.
Amanda Peterson Corio, Google's global head of data center energy, stated that Taiwan is a crucial base for Google's cloud technology, housing data centers and offices. Besides purchasing solar energy to drive its operations, Google can also provide solar energy to local suppliers in the region. Corio mentioned that sharing renewable energy power with suppliers helps Google reduce its Scope 3 emissions.
New Green Power, a subsidiary of BlackRock’s Climate Infrastructure, is one of Taiwan's leading solar developers. Taiwan aims to reach a solar installation capacity of 20 GW by 2025 and 80 GW by 2050. While Google and BlackRock have not disclosed the scale of their equity stake, Corio indicated that the financing will be utilized to build a 1 GW solar pipeline.
｜South Korea's Largest Jeju Hallim Offshore Wind Project Halted Due to Lack of Cultural Heritage Investigation
On the 2nd, Jeju Island reported that the Jeju World Natural Heritage Center intends to issue a suspension order to Jeju Hallim Offshore Wind Power Co., Ltd., by the Cultural Heritage Protection Act in Korea. This act mandates that any project exceeding 30,000 square meters in construction area must conduct a cultural heritage investigation to determine the presence of any cultural assets needing protection. However, during the construction of the offshore wind power project, the heritage headquarters failed to conduct part of the cultural heritage index survey. The missing survey area is estimated to cover 12 plots (approximately 2,700 square meters).
Additionally, Jeju City revealed suspicions of unauthorized damage to an absolute protection zone by an operator and has requested an investigation by the autonomous police. Jeju City noted that an area of 1,500 square meters, exceeding the permitted 1,300 square meters by 200 square meters, was damaged. Currently, the Hallim Offshore Wind Power project, situated along the coast of Suwon-ri, Hallim-eup, Jeju City, is the largest wind power project in South Korea, with a total cost of 630.3 billion KRW, comprising 18 offshore wind turbines of 5.56 MW each, and a total installed capacity of 100 MW. The project commenced in April 2022, has reached a completion rate of 93%, and is scheduled for completion in October.
Reference: The Business Times｜KEMP
