AirTrunk has signed a renewable energy agreement to off-set Microsoft’s energy use in its facilities.
AirTrunk and Hong Kong utility CLP Power this week announced a renewable energy solution in Hong Kong that will match Microsoft’s data center electricity consumption with local renewable energy certificates (RECs).
Under the agreement, AirTrunk will source hourly RECs from CLP Power to provide renewable energy matching at its HKG1 data center for its customer, Microsoft. The solution will be directly linked to the West New Territories (WENT) Landfill Gas Power Generation Units of CLP Power.
“As we continue to power the cloud for the world’s largest technology companies, we need to manage our impact on grid stability, reliability, and resilience, sustainably. Hourly renewable supply and demand matching strategies, like this project with CLP Power and Microsoft, play an important role in laying the foundation for a fully decarbonized grid across the region while setting new standards for climate action,” said AirTrunk Chief Technology Officer, Damien Spillane.
While many data center companies are looking to renewable energy deals to offset their energy use, many power purchase agreements only buy the output from renewable projects when they are actually generating power. Hourly-matching deals ensure customers are constantly procuring renewable energy, usually from a number of sources.
The APAC data center firm said the deal was the REC deal in the APJ region to feature hourly matching to data center electricity consumption; the first to be tied to an identifiable renewable energy project in Hong Kong; and the biggest REC agreement for a data center since the launch of the CLPs program in 2019.
Announced in 2019 and going live in late 2020, HKG1 is a 17,400 sqm (187,300sq ft) facility located near Tsuen Wan with 20MW of capacity and more than 8,000 sqm (86,100 sq ft) of technical space.
CLP Power Senior Director Customer Success & Experience, Lena Low, added: “We are pleased to pioneer a brand-new hourly renewable energy certificate in support of AirTrunk’s commitment to source clean energy for data center operations on an hour-by-hour basis.”
Microsoft General Manager Energy & Renewables, Brian Janous said: “By leveraging AirTrunk’s capability and presence in the Hong Kong market, we are able to both secure additional renewable supply in support of meeting our commitment to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2025, and also take a meaningful step toward having 100 percent of our electricity matched by zero-carbon resources all of the time in the region. We believe innovative commercial structures like this with AirTrunk will be key as we continue to move toward our 100/100/0 commitment.”
Last month AirTrunk announced its commitment to Net Zero emissions by 2030.
