This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) just lit up a new front in Asia’s clean power race. The tech giant has inked a long-term agreement to buy electricity from a 30-megawatt solar farm in Malaysia’s Kedah state, developed by a local unit of Japan’s Shizen Energy. The project, expected to go online in 2027, falls under Malaysia’s Corporate Green Power Programme and marks Google’s latest move to secure greener energy for its power-hungry operations. It’s a signal that Big Tech isn’t waiting around for policy shiftsespecially in regions where decarbonization remains tough.
The deal comes as Malaysia ramps up ambitions to turn clean energy into a magnet for global capital. The country wants 70% of its installed power capacity to come from renewables by 2050, up from just 26% last year, according to BloombergNEF. Power purchase agreements like this one are proving to be a favored playbook for tech giants looking to de-risk their energy sourcing strategies in volatile regulatory environments. And for Google, it adds to a growing stack of clean power contracts across Asia, including a recent one in Chiba, Japan.
For Shizen Energy, this is more than just another solar deal. After cutting renewable agreements with Microsoft in Japan and now expanding into Malaysia with Google, the Japanese developer is quickly becoming a backstage powerhouse in Asia’s energy transition. And as hyperscalers continue pouring billions into data centers across the region, especially in fossil-heavy markets, these types of long-term clean energy partnerships could become the new standardoffering not just environmental credibility but also critical operational certainty.
