On November 14, the Hoover Institution hosted an expert roundtable on Energy Security, inviting Dr. Tsai-Ying Lu, Director of the Climate Resilience and Sustainability Research Program in DSET, to deliver a virtual presentation. Dr. Lu focused on the energy challenges posed by the rapid expansion of the AI industry, using data center infrastructure as a key example, and highlighted Taiwan’s potential to provide resilient energy solutions.
Taiwan is already home to several large-scale data centers. These include domestic facilities built by Chunghwa Telecom, a hyperscale data center launched by Google in 2023, and continued investments from global cloud service providers such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon. Dr. Lu explained that energy consumption of data centers varies significantly depending on the types of cloud services provided. She cited Google’s hyperscale hybrid cloud data center in Taiwan as one of the most energy-intensive examples.
According to Google’s 2024 Environmental Report on Data Center Operations, the Taiwan-based facility has achieved a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.12—significantly below the global average of 1.55. This demonstrates that Taiwan is making measurable progress toward improving energy efficiency in data center operations. The report also estimates that a hyperscale data center in Taiwan may consume approximately 8.5 megawatts (MW) of electricity annually—equivalent to only about 0.09% of central Taiwan’s regional power generation.
Dr. Lu further noted that Google’s data center in Changhua County operates 24/7 and draws power in part from a 100 MW solar power plant located in the nearby Changbin Industrial Zone. However, the Google report also reveals that only about 18% of the center’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources. Given the intermittent nature of renewable energy, she emphasized the need for supporting infrastructure such as battery energy storage systems (BESS) and hydropower storage to ensure stable supply. She stressed that investing in robust foundational energy infrastructure will be critical moving forward.
In her presentation, Dr. Lu also addressed regional power transmission challenges in Taiwan, including uneven distribution of electricity demand and the constraints of long-distance transmission. She cited the Taiwan Power Company’s recent efforts to enhance grid resilience—through decentralized grid planning and the integration of renewable energy sources across different regions—as essential measures to ensure green energy can be effectively delivered to high-consumption areas such as science and industrial parks.
Moreover, Taiwan’s strategies for diversifying its energy mix and advancing energy storage technologies will be key to mitigating the intermittency issues associated with renewable sources. In conclusion, Dr. Lu expressed confidence that the projected increase in electricity demand driven by the growing number of data centers in Taiwan over the next few years is unlikely to pose a serious challenge. Rather, it highlights the importance of bolstering operational resilience in energy infrastructure and reducing reliance on long-distance transmission—both of which may offer long-term solutions to meet future data center demands.