On this Earth Day, we’re proud to highlight two recent agreements that demonstrate Micron’s commitment to sourcing renewable energy for our global operations.
Last month, we closed a partnership with Idaho Power to construct a 40-megawatt solar project near our corporate headquarters in Boise, Idaho. The project is our first renewable energy power purchase agreement (PPA), and it’s also one of the first for Idaho Power. PPAs enable companies like Micron to secure new, dedicated renewable energy resources to meet business sustainability goals, while also enabling utilities to add new renewable resources to their systems. It’s a win/win — an important step on our journey to source 100% renewable energy for our U.S. manufacturing operations by the end of 2025 and also a key step for Idaho Power, which has established its own goal to provide 100% clean energy to its customers by 2045. The project will cover more than 350 acres and generate about 20% of Micron’s power consumption in Idaho.
In Malaysia, we took a different approach to sourcing renewable energy. Last year, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources established the Green Electricity Tariff (GET) initiative. GET allows subscribers to use electricity from renewable energy sources at scale, offering 4,500 gigawatt hours of electricity per year for purchase (enough to power 600,000 housing units in Peninsular Malaysia for one month).
On April 20, Micron Malaysia announced our enrollment in GET, which commits the sites to source 100% renewable energy in 2022. Through the agreement, our sites will eliminate approximately 120,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to removing 24,000 passenger vehicles from the road. The agreement makes Malaysia Micron’s first 100% green energy region – a key milestone as we strive to source more renewable energy to power our global operations.
These agreements, and our goals, are complex and require us to negotiate with utilities and government entities on a host of variables. These two agreements represent many long hours of work for Micron teams — work that’s provided valuable experience that we can take forward into our engagements with other partners to continue advancing on our sustainability goals.
In addition to these large-scale agreements, we have also committed to following industry best practices of on-site renewable energy generation. We’re installing rooftop solar panels in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the U.S. And we’re proud of our Taiwan A3 cleanroom, which is the first Micron facility designed according to our sustainability goals. It is LEED Gold certified and also received International WELL Building Institute Certification and additional sustainability awards locally in Taiwan. The building incorporates features such as solar-enabled rooftops that also harvest rainwater, plants that cover approximately 30% of the campus’s outdoor space and water saving technologies that reuse and recycle 75% of the fab’s water. This building and similar work we’ve undertaken around the world demonstrates Micron’s commitment to sustainability and how we’re investing in our future and, to reference this year’s Earth Day theme, our planet.
