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Beyond carbon-neutral and carbon-free energy targets
While carbon-free energy is crucial to reducing GHG emissions and water consumption , green energy alone is not enough to maintain sustainable operations and address the adverse environmental impact of data centres . Here , Nour Rteil , Lead Application Developer at Techbuyer , discusses the importance of implementing energy efficient servers , for example , to reduce carbon impact on the environment and calls for data centre leaders to improve their energy use / efficiency .
Current state of play
Over recent years we have seen a flux of data centres achieve carbon neutrality by participating in schemes designed to make equivalent reductions of carbon as the ones produced , also known as carbon offsetting . Often , data centres offset their carbon footprint by purchasing renewable energy credits ( RECs ). Today , data centres are going one step ahead and promising to use carbon-free energy in the future , by relying 100 % on renewable energy sources , not only in their on-site operations but also in their overall value chain .
Between the hyperscale data centres , Google was the first major company to reach a carbon neutral state in 2007 and is working towards reaching a 24 / 7 carbon-free energy target across all its data centres by 2030 . Microsoft has also committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030 and is planning to offset all its historical carbon emissions by 2050 . Facebook has committed to reaching net-zero carbon across its value chain by 2030 and Amazon has recently pledged to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040 .
The limits of the green energy revolution
Shifting to renewable energy has environmental benefits beyond reducing carbon and other GHG emissions . Unlike thermal power plants , wind and solar plants do not require large amounts of water to operate ( estimated to be 10 % of global water withdrawals by the International Energy Agency ). According to Amazon , its renewable energy generation helped to avoid the withdrawal of around 480 billion litres of water in 2020 .
Nevertheless , renewable energy relies on natural resources that are not present all the time and are therefore limited in supply . For this reason , data centres need to be mindful of their energy consumption and waste , even if it is generated from a green source . If data centres improve their energy efficiency and consequently reduce their energy consumption , excess green energy could be sold back to the grid and in turn , used to further reduce global emissions .
Optimising overall energy use through servers
Over the past years , data centres have done a great job in improving their infrastructural energy efficiency and this is evident when looking at their reported PUE figures . Google for example reports a 12-month PUE of 1.1 across all their large-scale data centres in all seasons , including all sources of overhead . www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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