Google has signed a long-term agreement to purchase electricity from a PV power station with installation capacity of 10MWp that will be established on fish culture ponds in Tainan, southern Taiwan. The electricity will be used by Google's datacenter located in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park, about 100km to the north of the power station, according to Google Blog.

Google is the first enterprise operating in Taiwan to purchase renewable energy after Taiwan's Electricity Act was amended to allow non-utility enterprises to directly purchase renewable energy to reduce carbon dioxide emission. The purchase is also Google's first renewable energy transaction deal in Asia.

With partnerships with Diode Ventures, Taiyen Green Energy, J&V Energy Technology and New Green Power, the new PV power station will consist of 40,000 PV modules which will be stilted by poles several feet higher than fish culture ponds to ecologically coexist with fish culture.

The PV power station will begin to supply power for the datacenter in 2020, with both being connected with the same regional power gridaccording to Energy & Infrastructure senior lead Marsden Hanna for Google.

Since power price rates during peak-load hours are higher than those during the other time intervals in Taiwan and strong insolation occurs in peak-load hours, the datacenter will use all of the electricity from the PV power station but will also rely on local power supply to cover the gap or seek other sources of renewable energy including wind-generated electricity, added Hanna.