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The move comes as Microsoft ramps up its data centre investments worldwide
Microsoft and asset management company Brookfield have agreed a renewable energy deal whereby Microsoft will invest an estimated $10 billion in energy projects that will be developed by Brookfield and its renewable company arm.
The deal will see Brookfield Renewable Partners provide 10.5 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity between 2026 and 2030 in the U.S. and Europe, which will be added to the grid that Microsoft data centres draw electricity from. Microsoft, in return, will gain access to a pipeline of new renewable energy capacity, supporting the increasing demand for cloud services both domestically and globally. The scope of the deal may widen at a later date to include Asia-Pacific, India, and Latin America.
No explicit financial details of the deal were disclosed, although the Financial Times estimated that adding the new capacity would cost over $10 billion, citing “recent industry trends.”
“This first of its kind agreement, which is almost eight times larger than the largest single corporate PPA ever signed, is a testament to our ability to reliably deliver clean power solutions at scale to our corporate partners and accelerate the energy transition,” said Connor Teskey, CEO of Brookfield Renewable and President of Brookfield Asset Management in a press release.
The deal is an extension of a pre-existing collaboration between the two corporations. Prior to this agreement, nearly one gigawatt of renewable capacity had already been contracted. As well as making use of wind and solar energy, the partnership will explore new carbon free energy generation technologies, contributing to both companies’ goals to decarbonise global energy supplies and reduce carbon emissions, including Microsoft’s sustainability goals of having all of its electricity consumption matched by zero carbon energy purchases by 2030.
The USA is home to a third of the world’s data centres, and Microsoft has ramped up its investment in both its domestic and foreign markets in order to gain a competitive edge over rivals such as AWS. Last month the company unveiled an AI hub in London, following Microsoft’s 2023 pledge to invest £2.5 billion over the next three years to expand its UK data centre infrastructure.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the investment “a for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK,” in government statement.
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