AirTrunk announces renewable energy solution for Microsoft

Author: Beatrice

AirTrunk and CLP Power have announced a first-of-its-kind renewable energy solution in Hong Kong that will match Microsoft’s data centre 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 centre for Microsoft, setting a number of industry benchmarks, including being:

• The first-of-its-kind in the APJ region to feature hourly matching of renewable generation to data centre electricity consumption

• The first RECs solution linked to an identifiable renewable energy project in Hong Kong

• The biggest RECs agreement for a data centre since the launch of the CLP RECs programme in 2019

The solution will be directly linked to the West New Territories (WENT) Landfill Gas Power Generation Units of CLP Power, namely WE Station. WE Station is a renewable energy project making use of landfill gas, that is locally produced at the landfill site, for power generation and converting waste to energy.

AirTrunk Chief Technology Officer, Damien Spillane, says, “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 play an important role in laying the foundation for a fully decarbonised grid across the region, while setting new standards for climate action.”

CLP Power Senior Director Customer Success and Experience, Lena Low, says, “We are pleased to pioneer a brand-new hourly renewable energy certificate in support of AirTrunk’s commitment to source clean energy for data centre operations on an hour-by-hour basis.

“CLP Power is committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain by 2050 and will continue to work with our customers to create more innovative ways of bundling our carbon offset products, to match customers’ needs so that they can achieve their decarbonisation targets.”

Each unit of electricity in a CLP Hourly Renewable Energy Certificate represents the hourly environmental attributes of electricity produced by dedicated renewable energy sources in Hong Kong generated by CLP Power. With CLP Hourly RECs, customers can match their electricity consumption with the renewable energy generated on an hour-by-hour basis, moving forward to zero carbon operations.

Throughout its facilities, AirTrunk is collaborating with its customers to offer renewable energy options to help meet their ambitious sustainability targets. Microsoft worked with AirTrunk to source the RECs in Hong Kong, with the overall solution contributing towards Microsoft’s 100/100/0 by 2030 goal.

Microsoft General Manager Energy and Renewables, Brian Janous says, “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% renewable energy by 2025, and also take a meaningful step toward having 100% 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.”