Mitsubishi Estate subsidiary Marunouchi Direct Access (MDA) is powering all three of its data centers in Tokyo using renewable energy.
“In early February 2022, all the electricity consumed by all three data centers owned by the company was switched to renewable energy,” the company said in a press release.
The company said its move to adopt renewable energy certificates was made under the RE100 climate plan using conforming feed-in tariff (FIT) non-fossil fuel energy certificates with tracking information. Mitsubishi Estate joined the initiative in 2020 and has committed to sourcing 100 percent renewable electricity across its global operations by 2050.
Formed in 2000, MDA is a joint venture between Mitsubishi Estate (the real estate arm of the former Mitsubishi Company) and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation that provides dark fiber and data center services around Tokyo.
The company opened the 150-rack Marunouchi DC in 2001 and the 500-rack capacity Otemachi DC I in 2012. It opened Otemachi DC II; a 130 rack facility located in the Tokyo Torch development next to Tokyo station in July 2021.
MDA said the CO2 discharges from the three data centers are expected to be reduced by 9,800 tons per year. It didn’t disclose which company it had partnered with to procure the energy & certificates and/or install on-site energy generation.
Last year, another Mitsubishi Estate subsidiary, TA Realty, announced plans to develop a new $1.8 billion data center campus in the US in Loudoun County, Virginia. The fully built-out campus will feature over 1.5 million square feet (139,500 sqm) of space with 300MW of capacity, and a dedicated on-site substation. The first buildings are expected to come online in late 2021.
In September 2021, AWS signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Mitsubishi for its operations in Japan. The project, to be operated by Mitsubishi subsidiary MC Retail Energy, will consist of ground-based solar power generation projects totaling 22MW across more than 450 locations in the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Tohoku region. Per the Renewable Energy Institute, there are only around 20 largescale PPA contracts in Japan.
