Microsoft reported on Wednesday that it has met its target of purchasing enough renewable energy to match all of the electricity it uses and intends to continue buying equivalent clean power as it grows operations. The company said it reached the 2025 objective by contracting 40 gigawatts of new renewable energy supply, primarily through long-term power purchase agreements that support the financing and development of new generation projects.
Of the 40 gigawatts contracted, Microsoft said 19 gigawatts have already been injected into power grids. The remaining contracted supply is expected to be delivered over the next five years and spans projects in 26 countries, according to the company.
At the West Dublin campus - Microsoft’s first data centre outside the United States, opened in 2009 - the company’s cloud operations chief Noelle Walsh said the firm intends to preserve the 100% electricity matching as demand rises, stating: "As we continue to grow we want to maintain that 100%." Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa told Reuters that carbon-free electricity will play an increasing role in meeting the matching target through 2030. Nakagawa cited carbon-free sources such as the 2024 agreement with Constellation Energy to restart a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania as examples of that approach.
Microsoft separately outlined investment plans aimed at extending AI capabilities beyond traditional markets. The company said it is on pace to invest $50 billion by 2030 to expand AI into countries across the Global South, with much of that capital directed at cloud and AI data centre capacity.
In Ireland, Microsoft expects a recent change by the government that effectively lifts a moratorium on new data centre grid connections to help it address significant pent-up demand. Walsh said the move will allow Microsoft to meet what she described as "tremendous" pent-up demand in the country.
Microsoft's EMEA cloud operations lead, Eoin Doherty, said the company plans to advance previously paused proposals for a data centre campus outside Dublin once a regulatory policy requiring new data centres to source at least 80% of their annual demand from additional renewable power begins being implemented next month. The company noted that data centres accounted for 22% of Ireland’s power consumption in 2024.
Microsoft’s stated strategy combines long-term renewable contracts and growing use of carbon-free electricity to sustain a full match between its electricity consumption and contracted clean supply, even as it embarks on an AI-driven expansion of power-intensive data centre infrastructure and prepares large-scale investments in new markets.