Microsoft purchased energy from 10 nuclear power plants

Microsoft and the green energy department of Brookfield Asset Management signed the largest enterprise clean energy purchase agreement in history, and the technology giant increased its investment in artificial intelligence.

According to a statement on Wednesday, Brookfield Renewable Partners will provide more than 10.5 GW of renewable energy capacity in the United States and Europe from 2026. This is equivalent to about 10 nuclear power plants, reflecting the huge demand for power from data centers and artificial intelligence.  

Science and technology companies are actively seeking more clean energy to achieve their climate goals, especially when the overall energy demand continues to grow.

Kyle Harrison, financial analyst of Bloomberg New Energy, commented that this is absolutely the largest single announcement of the clean energy purchase agreement of enterprises. He further said that this made Microsoft the second largest enterprise buyer of clean energy through the power purchase agreement, second only to Amazon.

Estimating the price of 10.5 GW of new capacity is a complex task because development costs fluctuate greatly depending on the type and location of energy sources. However, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that if all of these projected development projects were to be used for U.S. solar power plants, the total cost would exceed $11.5 billion. It will cost nearly 17 billion dollars to build wind power with the same capacity in the United States.

Brookfield Renewable Partners' share price soared 8.5% in New York, the largest increase since mid November. Microsoft shares rose 1.6%.

Due to the development and operation of artificial intelligence New Data Center As well as the demand for new factories and electric vehicles, the U.S. power consumption, which has barely increased in the past two decades, is expected to accelerate rapidly. Exelon Corp., a power generation company, predicted last month that the future power demand of data centers in the Chicago area would A sharp increase of 900%.

Such a strong forecast poses a challenge for technology companies to reduce emissions while ensuring more power supply. Microsoft's goal is to balance power consumption by purchasing zero carbon energy by 2030.

Microsoft is investing billions of dollars to enhance its AI capabilities and support the data center infrastructure they need, because the company believes that this technology is critical to attracting customers to use its cloud computing services.