Google yesterday said it had signed a geothermal power purchase agreement with Baseload Power Taiwan (台灣倍速羅得) to support clean energy development — its first such deal in the Asia-Pacific region.
Initial projects under the deal would add 10 megawatts of “always-on” power to the grid and “help catalyze Taiwan’s geothermal market,” a post on Google’s official blog said.
Taiwan’s access to “substantial geothermal resources” could complement other renewable sources such as solar and wind, the company said, adding that there is “significant potential” for using underground heat to generate clean electricity.
Photo: AFP
“This long-term partnership with Baseload Capital, which includes an equity investment in the company, represents our latest step to accelerate the deployment of geothermal as a 24/7 clean energy technology across Asia Pacific and globally,” Google said.
The multinational US technology company added that the partnership was an “important milestone in Google’s clean energy journey.”
Energy Administration data showed that Taiwan had an installed capacity of 7 megawatts of geothermal energy production as of February last year — a small fraction of the nation’s energy output.
Baseload Power Taiwan, a subsidiary of Sweden-based Baseload Capital, broke ground on its first power plant project in Hualien County in 2020 and is “still in the drilling phase,” its Web site says.
Baseload Power Taiwan’s Web site also states that four other power plant projects are “ongoing.”
“Our goal is to bring energy resilience and business opportunities to local communities, while contributing to Taiwan’s net zero targets and the objective of 6GW [gigawatts] of geothermal installed capacity by 2050,” the Web site says.
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