Partnering with Johor Special Water (JSW), AirTrunk is building a recycled water supply system for its JHB1 and JHB2 data centre campuses in Johor. The project involves re-purposing unused wastewater and is the largest of its kind in Malaysia to date. It aims to reduce reliance on potable water by providing an alternative source for operational needs.

The initiative includes investments in treatment and supply infrastructure for locally-produced recycled water. Once operational, the system will support cooling and other non-potable uses at AirTrunk’s facilities, helping to contribute to more sustainable water management in the region. The company responds to calls by both the federal and state governments to look into alternative water sources in the face of growing demand.

The recycled water initiative complements broader environmental features at AirTrunk’s Johor facilities, including the liquid cooling system installed at JHB1 in 2024. The design supports energy-efficient operations and is in line with efforts to optimise the use of natural resources.

AirTrunk’s second Johor data centre, JHB2, is currently under development in Iskandar Puteri. The facility will be scalable to over 270MW, increasing the company’s total investment in Malaysia to RM9.7 billion (approximately US$2.2 billion). JHB2 is located in a major availability zone and will be built with a target power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.25. Customers will also have access to multiple renewable energy options.

The company’s existing JHB1 also includes onsite solar installations and a virtual power purchase agreement (vPPA) for 30MW of renewable energy under Malaysia’s Corporate Green Power Programme.

To support future energy needs at JHB2, AirTrunk is working with national utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) through the Green Lane Pathway for Data Centres initiative. The collaboration is expected to fast-track high-voltage electricity supply and includes a plan for AirTrunk to allocate land for TNB to build a new substation.

Chief Minister of Johor YAB Dato’ Onn Hafiz Ghazi welcomed the partnership with JSW, noting both its environmental and economic contributions. “The initiative addresses environmental concerns and also brings significant economic benefits to the state. It is a testament to the positive impact that public-private partnerships can have on our community,” he said.

JSW is a wholly owned entity under Permodalan Darul Ta’zim (PDT). A spokesperson said, “Collaborating with AirTrunk on this recycled water initiative is a significant milestone for JSW. It reflects our shared vision for sustainable water solutions and demonstrates how innovative thinking can lead to tangible benefits for both industry and the community. At the same time, we highly appreciate IWK’s role in providing treated effluent sources, which has been instrumental in completing this collaboration.”

AirTrunk currently operates 12 data centres in the Asia Pacific region, in Australia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Its hyperscale platform now offers nearly 1.8GW of total capacity. In 2023, Blackstone and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired the company in what became the largest-ever deal to date in the sector, valued at US$16.1 billion.

(Image source: “Data Center” by Bob Mical is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)

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The creation of electronic devices and connecting them to the internet has a large impact on waste production, non-renewable resource usage, and global warming. In order to prevent this from wreaking even more havoc, is to rely on green computing – which attempts to create an IT system that is eco-sustainable using new technology and best practices. In essence, creating a sustainable future.

Green computing is required as a foundation for a sustainable future as sustainability rises to the top of global CEOs’ objectives and challenges lists, according to the IBM IBV study.

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Between 1.8% and 3.9% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, with data centers using 3% of the world’s energy annually. That represents a 100% growth over the last decade.

As sustainability is fast emerging as a business priority, IBM has just unveiled the next generation of its LinuxONE server, a highly scalable Linux and Kubernetes-based platform, designed to run thousands of workloads in the footprint of a single machine. With its features, IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4 can help clients use less energy. For instance, running Linux workloads on five IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4 systems as opposed to running them on comparable x86 servers under the same conditions can save energy usage by 75%, space by 50%, and the CO2e footprint by over 850 metric tonnes yearly.

A sustainable future lies in the hands of technologies

The study highlighted that 48% of CEOs across industries say increasing sustainability is one of the highest priorities for their organization in the next two to three years. However, 51% also cite sustainability as among their greatest challenges in that same timeframe, with lack of data insights, unclear ROI, and technology barriers, as hurdles.

“When comparing the sustainability efforts in APAC and the rest of the world, we discovered that there are different types of CEOs, including those that simply comply with regulations, optimize their enterprises to do so and become more efficient, and embrace sustainability as a transformative topic. What we observed is that the share of CEOs in Asia Pacific who have already accepted sustainability as a transformative topic lag behind the share of CEOs globally,” stated Agnes Heftberger, GM of IBM ASEANZK.

From IBM’s perspective, this indicates that there is still an opportunity for C-Level decision makers and business strategists in Asia Pacific to embrace sustainability, not just as a must-do and must comply, and to become more efficient, but actually as a topic that can drive sustainable growth from a business point of view.

In addition, data centers are a significant source of energy use and carbon emissions, according to Marcel Mitran, IBM Fellow and CTO of Cloud Platform, IBM LinuxONE. Data and technology, however, can assist businesses in putting sustainability goals into practice.

“Reducing data center energy consumption is a tangible way to decrease carbon footprint. In that context, migrating to IBM LinuxONE is designed to help clients meet their scale and security goals, in addition to meeting sustainability goals for today’s digital business,” explained Mitran.

IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4 is an engineered scale-out-on-scale-up system, that was created to let clients run workloads at sustained high density and grow capacity by turning on unused cores without increasing their energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, clients can use IBM Instana Observability on LinuxONE to monitor energy use.

Solutions to develop, build, and manage energy-efficient infrastructures and innovations using a hybrid cloud approach are part of IBM’s portfolio of sustainability technologies. One product in the portfolio, IBM LinuxONE, is made to optimize data centers by cutting energy use and raising energy effectiveness.

Furthermore, with the metaverse being the talk of the town lately, even though LinuxONE isn’t specifically designed as the focal point, Francis Goh from IBM Technology Sales, Asia Pacific did note that LinuxONE has some relevance to it.

“People will need to use services, such as making purchases, as they interact in the metaverse. All of these has got to do with digital assets and even cryptocurrency. These are all adequately protected and guarded by LinuxONE. So, that’s truly where LinuxONE [fits into this space], with its ability to secure digital assets and protect data,” explained Goh.

On September 14, 2022, IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4 will become generally available worldwide. Entry-level and mid-range systems will follow in the first half of 2023.

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Modern times have seen a rise in the popularity of electric vehicles, particularly as their applications for commercial vehicles grow. The methods to make electric vehicles more accessible, convenient to charge, and cost-effective to run are being developed by numerous industry makers and solution providers. Battery swapping is one such solution that offers fleet operators all these advantages.

As the name implies, battery swapping technology is a technique that enables a user to change a battery to keep a car functioning. One of the best options for balancing energy demand and supply is provided by this technology.

The global market for switching out EV batteries was worth $76.7 million in 2020, according to Inc42. By 2028, it’s projected to be valued at $4.96 billion. China currently rules this industry. Up to 2021, there were over 690 battery swapping stations established across the nation, and by 2025, about 26,000 stations are expected to be operational.

It’s encouraging to see how quickly other countries in Asia are embracing this approach. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore has awarded Gogoro Inc., a global technology leader in battery swapping ecosystems that enable sustainable mobility solutions for cities, a sandbox pilot to deploy and validate battery swapping as a method for next-generation smart mobility.

Gogoro has partnered with Jardine Cycle & Carriage, a diversified group with market-leading enterprises in Southeast Asia, to launch its sandbox test. Cycle & Carriage, a division of Jardine Cycle & Carriage, will operate and construct Gogoro’s battery swapping infrastructure in Singapore as well as serve as the city-sole state’s distributor of the company’s electric scooters.

Why does Singapore need battery swapping?

According to Gogoro’s founder, chairman, and CEO Horace Luke, businesses, as well as consumers, are in dire need of sustainable mobility options in cities. For urban fleets, Gogoro battery swapping offers a viable solution that is always available, safe, reliable, scalable, and environmentally friendly. He also stated how nearly all of Taiwan’s electric deliveries and more than 25% of all quick commerce deliveries, such as food and online transactions, are made possible by Gogoro’s battery swapping.

“We are partnering with Jardine Cycle & Carriage Group to introduce this new sustainable business model for food delivery and logistics fleets in Singapore today and in other cities across the region in the future,” added Luke.

Meanwhile, JC&C is eager to work with Gogoro to introduce an innovative electric two-wheeler solution in support of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, according to the company’s Managing Director for Direct Motor Interests, Wilfried Foo.

“We are confident that we are well-placed to accelerate the implementation of Gogoro’s best-in-class battery swapping solution by deploying our existing infrastructure to operate the GoStation network in Singapore. Together with Gogoro, we are looking for partners in the delivery or logistics space that are interested in harnessing this potential and benefitting from this platform with us,” explained Foo.

Gogoro Smartscooters, Gogoro GoStation battery switch stations, and Gogoro smart batteries will all be part of the soon-to-launch Gogoro battery swapping sandbox trial. Gogoro’s battery swapping network and vehicle fleet in Singapore will be managed by Cycle & Carriage. Additionally, Cycle & Carriage will look at collaborating with various food delivery and logistical fleets across the nation. The Gogoro sandbox supports Singapore’s Green Plan 2030 and its goal of converting all of its energy and transportation to sustainable sources.

“Gogoro is honored to be given approval by the Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) to operate a sandbox to validate Gogoro battery swapping as a smart mobility refueling solution for the future, and we applaud the Singapore Green Plan 2030 and its proactive commitment to sustainable energy and transportation,” said Luke.

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It is obvious that society as a whole needs to do more to address its role in climate change, and businesses have a critical part to play in preventing the worst consequences. In order to attain net zero carbon emissions, many businesses, whether large or small, need to increasingly give sustainability and green options a top priority in their business models.

What is net zero carbon emission?

According to The World Economic Forum, attaining net zero emissions is not the same as getting rid of all emissions. It entails making sure that any emissions from human activity that cannot be eliminated, such as carbon dioxide, are nonetheless taken out of the atmosphere. This can be accomplished naturally, for example, by replanting trees that absorb CO2.

In fact, Malaysia is already making efforts to achieve net zero emissions. The Edge Markets reported that Malaysia’s goal of becoming a country with net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by as early as 2050 will need spending between RM350 billion and RM450 billion from 2030 to 2050. Although it involves a lot of money, it is said to remain doable.

It’s interesting that, with today’s technology being so powerful, it has emerged as an alternative way to protect the environment; Amazon has demonstrated this. Amazon just secured a contract with Plug Power to receive 10,950 tons of green hydrogen annually for its building and transportation activities, starting in 2025.

As part of its efforts to decarbonize its operations, the company will begin using green hydrogen to replace grey hydrogen, diesel, and other fossil fuels. The green hydrogen supply agreement will provide enough power each year for 30,000 forklifts or 800 heavy-duty trucks used in long-haul transportation.

For those who are unaware, green hydrogen is essentially a substitute that lessens emissions and protects the environment. This method is based on the chemical process known as electrolysis, which produces hydrogen, a fuel that is universal, light, and highly reactive. This process divides the hydrogen from the oxygen in water using an electrical current. Therefore, if this electricity is generated through renewable resources, there won’t be any addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere while producing energy.

Commitment to reducing carbon emissions

Given its potential to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors including long-haul trucking, steel manufacturing, aviation, and ocean shipping, Kara Hurst, vice president of worldwide sustainability at Amazon, said that Amazon is happy to have been an early adopter of green hydrogen.

“We are relentless in our pursuit to meet our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero carbon across our operations by 2040 and believe that scaling the supply and demand for green hydrogen, such as through this agreement with Plug Power, will play a key role in helping us achieve our goals,” said Hurst.

Amazon continues to invest in a variety of technologies as the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy since no single solution can completely bridge the emissions gap to net-zero carbon.

Scaling hydrogen has many more potential applications than forklifts alone, and many more are being researched and developed. Through a combustion process, hydrogen can be used as a fuel similar to natural gas or diesel. In “fuel cells,” where hydrogen and oxygen combine to make energy without the direct release of any pollutants or greenhouse gases at the point of consumption, it can also be employed. However, additional hydrogen-powered equipment needs to be made commercially available in order to support Amazon’s operations and fulfill their net-zero commitment.

“Plug is fully committed to a green hydrogen future, and we are building a complete hydrogen ecosystem—from molecule to applications combined with a resilient network of green hydrogen plants around the world—to make hydrogen adoption easy for companies looking to reach net-zero carbon emissions,” said Andy Marsh, CEO of Plug. “Securing this major green hydrogen supply deal with a customer like Amazon affirms our multi-year investment and strategic expansion into green hydrogen.

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Autonomous driving and automation, in general, are creating unprecedented efficiency and a seemingly insatiable demand for data. This phenomenon has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has accelerated the push for digitalization, especially in industry. Data centers are an inseparable part of our digital-first consumer and industry life. But it comes at a cost:  High energy consumption and carbon emissions in an industry that is seeing an explosion of high-density and large-scale development cannot be sustained and new, energy-efficient solutions are essential. If we hope to keep up with demand, we need to shift to greener data centers and we need to do it now.

Growth predictions

First, let’s consider how data center spending is set to increase. Figures from Dell’Oro Group 2022 Predictions suggest a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% and global data center CAPEX is on track to reach US$350 billion by 2026. Growth areas include demand for increased cloud capacity and the roll-out of AI infrastructure, adoption of new server CPU platforms, and accelerated computing. Edge computing alone will account for 8% of infrastructure spending

Second, let’s look at some of the factors driving this growth. IDC’s worldwide Future of Digital Infrastructure top 10 predictions, highlight that digital infrastructure strategies must address resiliency and trust; data-driven operational complexity; and business outcomes-driven sourcing and autonomous operations. By 2024, 75% of G2000 digital infrastructure RFPs will require vendors to prove progress on ESG/Sustainability initiatives with data, as CIOs rely on infrastructure vendors to help meet ESG goals and by 2025, 70% of companies will invest in alternative computing technologies to drive business differentiation by compressing time to value of insights, from complex data sets.

In Asia, top markets for data centers include Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Seoul, and Tokyo with a current 1.3 gigawatts under construction in APAC and 100-megawatt campuses becoming common. Singapore was ranked first based on criteria such as market size, fiber connectivity, cloud availability, and the country’s ‘pro-business policies’. However, high carbon emissions and power consumption has resulted in strict policy measures in some countries regarding new data centers. For example in China, both Beijing and Shanghai have prohibited new data center projects with new projects now situated in northern and western parts of the country.

Most nations have already developed their own vision of what a digital economy looks like.  Cloud computing, big data, and AI are being adopted as a core part of digital transformation for businesses and governments and data storage is needed more than ever. The “Uptime Institute 2021 Data Center Industry Survey Results explains that since 2014, the power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of large data centers around the world (determined by calculating the ratio of the energy used as a whole as compared with the energy used by just the IT equipment alone) which should be 1.0 or below has remained around 1.6 for seven consecutive years. Put simply, these data centers use more energy and cost more money to run than it should.

With global commitments to achieve zero carbon by 2030, low carbonization of data centers may seem inevitable. However, the challenge is how to achieve this. There are four core trends for the future direction of data centers.

• Low-carbon and sustainable: The benefits of data centers to society must include sustainability and energy efficiency. This will include the large-scale application of clean energy, the development of carbon-reduction technologies such as PV and energy storage, and how the entire life-cycle of a product including recovering waste heat and recovery of materials managed.
• Simplified: Hardware convergence has become is enabling simplified architecture using prefabricated buildings and modular equipment rooms, simplified power supplies removing physical connections to simplified cooling and heating systems. Using this approach drastically cuts the delivery time down. A data center with 1,000 racks can be delivered in as little as six to nine months, down from a wait time of at least 18 months.
• Autonomous driving: Removing people from O&M creates a safer environment and enhances inspection speeds. Other benefits will include energy optimization such as smart cooling; scheduling of green power, energy storage, and backup power.
• Secure and reliable: Secure by design, data centers can minimize disruption via the adoption of AI predictive maintenance

Solving the challenge of growing demand for data with low-carbon solutions, Huawei’s next-gen simplified, green, intelligent, and secure data center infrastructure solution is only one of the solutions.  We need to consider green from the source of the power supply. We also need to consider how to improve the measurement of energy use. For example, PUE provides just one indicator but we should consider water efficiency (WUE) and carbon (CUE) as more comprehensive indicators.

Reducing carbon emissions is essential for the industry and an area in which innovation focuses on converging software and hardware as well as cross-product-domain collaboration. With our digital transformation and our digital-first lives, low-carbon is not just an industry imperative but essential for our green future.

The views in this article is that of the author and do not reflect the views of Tech Wire Asia. 

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In the next few years, Vietnam will see its electric vehicle battery industry scale up significantly with the help of a new project in the central province of Ha Tinh.

Vingroup, Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate, said it had started building a $174 million battery cell plant for its VinFast electric vehicle project on an 8-hectare (20 acres) plot.

It is one of a Vietnamese firm’s most ambitious new ventures and highlights its growing ambition to expand outside its domestic market into Southeast Asia. 

The cell plant would also enable Vinfast to own its supply chain of batteries and parts.

Vingroup to mass produce EV batteries

According to Bloomberg, VinFast’s new battery plant will have the capacity to produce 100,000 Lithium battery packs annually. It will supply batteries for 80,000 EVs per year when fully operational in 2022.

Thai Thi Thanh Hai, vice-chair of Vingroup and vice-chair of the board of VinFast said, “This is in the focus of VinFast’s localization strategy of supply.”

In an emailed statement to Reuters, the company works with various batteries partners, including StoreDot, Gotion High-Tech and ProLogium. VinFast also focuses on internal research and development while establishing research facilities to develop battery and charging technologies.

The company also announced a US$200m investment to establish headquarters in the US and plans to commence construction of a US vehicle manufacturing facility by 2025.

APAC – a growing market for EV batteries

The Asia-Pacific region is a growing market for EV batteries. The EV battery industry in the region, which includes China, India, Japan and South Korea, is expected to record robust growth over the next few years. This can be attributed to these countries’ rising demand for electric vehicles.

The Asia-Pacific EV Batteries Market is expected to reach a value of $90.41 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 20% during the forecast period 2021 to 2028.

In 2020, China posted 1.3 million electric vehicles sales, driven by the increasing adoption of the Tesla Model 3 and Hongguang Mini. Increased government efforts to increase sales of electric vehicles to 25% of car sales by 2025 have significantly boosted the growth of this market in China.

Increasing government initiatives to deploy electric and hybrid vehicles, including tax reductions and grants for residential and commercial infrastructure, encourages the adoption of electric mobility. This is expected to drive market growth over the forecast period.

Rise in EVs in the APAC region

The APAC region is seeing a rise in EVs demand. Over the next few years, EVs will become a mainstream option in this region. Government regulations also support its growth by providing incentives and subsidies to buyers.

Many countries in the region realize the need and importance of electric vehicles to replace gasoline or diesel cars. Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar have shown interest in increasing the adoption of EVs over the next five years. EV sales in these four countries will increase by more than 10% year-on-year till 2021

Additionally, consumers demand for EVs in this region is growing because of their environmental benefits over conventional internal combustion engines (ICEs).

The post Vinfast builds Vietnam’s first EV battery factory appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Southeast Asia’s largest economy has agreed to allow Sun Cable’s Australia-Asia PowerLink or AAPowerLink route through Indonesian waters and approved the undersea survey permit. 

“We expect this project will have a sustainable impact for our economy through various procurement programs that will benefit the industry and the government’s revenue,” coordinating minister of maritime and investment Luhut Binsar Panjaitan told a virtual press conference in Jakarta. 

AAPowerlink will generate solar electricity from one of the world’s biggest solar farm projects and transmit it from Darwin to Singapore starting in 2028. 

The project is expected to supply up to 15 percent of Singapore’s electricity needs and reduce the country’s emissions by around six million tonnes annually. 

The company will not be supplying renewable energy directly to Indonesia but promised around US$1 billion in direct investments on procurement of equipment and services and an additional US$1.5 in operational spending over the life of the project. 

“We’re really excited to announce that this project will invest US$2.58 billion into Indonesia,” Sun Cable CEO David Griffin said. 

“We want this world-leading project to create a step-change in the Indo-Pacific’s capability to achieve net-zero ambitions and economic growth sustained by renewable energy.”

The over AU$ 30-billion project includes the construction of the enormous solar farm in Australia’s Northern Territory, the world’s largest battery, and an approximately 4,200-kilometre undersea high-voltage cable system from Darwin to Singapore.

Solar and renewable energy in APAC

The Asia Pacific is where 60% of the world’s highest growing population resides. It also consumes half of the world’s energy supply. 

Unfortunately, most APAC nations are still dependent on fossil fuels, although many are keen to transition to clean and renewable energy sources.

Renewable energy is seen by many to be a key growth area in key APAC economies, as well as the world. According to ESCAP, leaders of these efforts are likely to be Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.

However efficient and earth-friendly renewable energy is, it is still a challenge to obtain, especially within the APAC region. The APAC region, whilst predicted to lead the world in renewable energy use in the near future, is notorious for pockets of areas in SEA where there are challenges that may lead the region to lag behind its peers from North Asia and Australia.

Significant barriers still remain — primarily surrounding the low number of corporate renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) executed here.

With additional reporting by AFP

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The Asia Pacific is where 60% of the world’s highest growing population resides. It also consumes half of the world’s energy supply. Unfortunately, most APAC nations are still dependent on fossil fuels, although many are keen to transition to clean and renewable energy sources. 

Fossil fuels, however, are a key cause of global warming due to the greenhouse gases they produce, which in turn, leads to climate change. 

Climate change has resulted in and will continue causing catastrophic natural disasters, mercurial temperatures, and environmental and ecological degradation around the world — unless we collectively reduce our carbon footprints to levels enough to slow down the impact of our activities.

As such, it is imperative that this growing region looks to not just cleaner, but also affordable and sustainable energies to fuel its growing population. 

However, energy markets remain among the most challenging in the world for organizations seeking to source 100% renewable energy. 

Energy efficiency has been around since the 90s, but it’s still an immensely valuable strategy today to meet decarbonization goals. But is it enough?

One Amazon strategy: energy efficiency

For global tech service provider Amazon, particularly AWS (Amazon Web Services), they have taken a focused approach centered on five specific strategies to meet its renewable energy goals. 

They include energy efficiency, on-site renewable projects, on-site solar energy, site energy contracts, and policy engagement.

Whilst energy efficiency is important, it only helps to allay part of the bigger problem of energy needs. The core issue behind energy consumption is still needing to address the need for energy that won’t burden the world with more carbon — especially one that runs heavily on technology and hardware. So eventually, the future of energy will have to be green and clean.

As such, Haig believes that a focus on collaboration and partnership in the industry and public sector in each market would be the way forward to meet the region’s clean energy needs.

Taking Amazon, for example, they are making progress by working with governments and utility suppliers around the world to help bring more new renewable energy projects online. 

One way they are doing this is through Corporate Purchase Power Agreements (CPPAs), or, site energy contracts. 

As noted by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), corporate renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) — in which a developer builds and maintains the project on the buyers’ behalf, in exchange for a long-term fixed contract for power renewable energy certificates — have become one of the biggest drivers of growth in new renewable power projects around the world today, including APAC.

CPPAs are a core part of Amazon’s strategy to bring more renewable energy to electricity grids around the world at no cost to local energy users. 

The issue with publicly funded PPAs

In the past, public funding has often been essential to enable renewable energy to compete with fossil fuels when it comes to price per megawatt-hour (MWh). 

With CPPAs, the cost of the building of the renewable energy source, such as a solar or wind farm, is covered totally by the corporate purchaser — in this case, Amazon. 

In many markets in APAC, the only option for bringing new/additional projects is through investment in captive self-generation projects. But owning and operating generation assets is not a tenable option for most corporate renewable energy buyers such as Amazon. 

This is because building and maintaining renewable power projects is not a core competency of such companies, and diverts from meeting core business needs, such as focusing on customers, reducing costs, and increasing innovation.

Hearing from Haig, it seems that corporate partners can only do so much — the rest of the work has to come from other stakeholders as well.

Haig asserts that collaboration to understand and address the barriers to renewable energy procurement will be key to driving more adoption of renewable energy in Asia. 

“Countries in Asia can really learn from the collaboration between public and private partners in other markets that are enabling better renewable energy procurement mechanisms.

“This makes it easier for corporates to invest in utility-scale renewable energy projects in the region”, he added. 

So how can smaller businesses do their part?

According to Haig, customers migrate workloads from on-premises data centers to cloud service providers (such as AWS) to increase agility, drive innovation, and achieve cost savings, among other reasons. 

However, to have an actual positive impact on the environment,  it’s not as simple as just moving to the cloud. Choosing a cloud or web service provider has to be a careful process to ensure that said provider has the capabilities and scale to ensure that their operations are sustainable and clean.

As opposed to on-premises infrastructure, a move to cloud infrastructure can reduce a company’s carbon footprint by as much as 78%, claims a recent Amazon-commissioned study by 451 Research (part of S&P Global Market Intelligence).

Additionally, if cloud service providers were able to run their operations on 100% renewable energy with greater access to renewable energy sources in APAC, that carbon reduction with the move to the cloud gets an additional boost to up to 93%.

For what it’s worth, energy efficiency is still important

For AWS, Haig states that the organization has always focused on energy efficiency and continuous innovation in its data centers. “We closely track our resource usage to optimize utilization, reduce energy, and increase operational excellence. 

“Our scale allows us to achieve much higher resource utilization and energy efficiency than the typical on-premises data center, especially because the AWS Global Infrastructure is built on Amazon’s own custom hardware — purpose-built and optimized for workloads run by AWS customers.”

An example of the hardware that Haig speaks of is “Graviton 2”,  the ARM-based chip designed by AWS. “This is currently the most power-efficient processor AWS offers to customers as Graviton 2 processors provide better performance per watt than any other EC2 processor,” shared Haig.

With the world’s increasing need for computing and other IT infrastructures, hardware innovations like the Graviton 2 will be critical to assuring that workloads of the future can be sustainably powered — at least, on an energy efficiency front.

According to the International Energy Agency, cloud-enabled innovation can spur exponentially accelerated energy systems transformation and more sustainable development. This will enable far greater speed and scale in delivering on decarbonization goals, and applies universally to all markets, whether as a part of earlier or later stage national decarbonization strategies.

Some examples of said innovations include harnessing cloud-enabled digital technology such as AI, machine learning, edge computing, connected homes and factories, and IoT.

“For example, governments and organizations can use cloud-based AI/ML techniques to enable more precise forecasting and responsive utilization of energy storage devices. 

“(they can also) accelerate the output of flexible demand-side energy management approaches and optimize operations and logistics and transform transportation sector energy use and associated emissions”, he shared.

Ultimately, efforts to reach decarbonization goals cannot be achieved if entities work in silos. Cooperation by public and private stakeholders through partnerships and agreements should be supported and enabled by governments as part of their Paris Agreements.

Importantly, committing to these agreements is ultimately key to seeing true change happen for the good of the world.

The post Is energy efficiency enough for businesses to help ameliorate climate change? appeared first on TechWire Asia.

The Asia Pacific comprises 60% of the world’s highest growing population. With said increased growths come higher energy needs — in fact, consuming half the world’s energy supply, according to the UN. However, most APAC nations are still dependent on fossil fuels, although many are keen to transition to clean and renewable energy sources.

Interestingly, renewable energy (RE) efforts in APAC have surpassed Europe and the US in the last few years. However, huge consumption and efforts into procuring RE are largely skewed largely towards nations such as China, India, and Australia, due mostly to significant growth in projects.

As compared to most of the western world, most of the APAC region comprises developing nations, with huge amounts of mouths to feed. It is thus integral that these nations secure clean, affordable, and sustainable energy to drive their economic and social growth.

Renewable energy issues in APAC

According to BMI research, some APAC countries still suffer from slowed investments and installations of clean energy. However, they are confident that the region is generally expected to lead the deployment of renewables within the next 10 years, to the tune of some 500 gigawatts of non-hydro capacity.

“In APAC (as in other markets in which Amazon operates around the world), we continue to collaborate with private and public organizations to overcome these barriers and invest in more projects in the region.

“We know that addressing the global crisis of climate change will take a combination of big, bold commitments and everyday actions”, he added.

He shared that Amazon’s approach employs five specific strategies to meet its renewable energy goals:

• Energy efficiency: Innovate to continuously increase the energy efficiency of their operations
• Off-site renewable projects: Invest in new, utility-scale renewable energy projects
• On-site solar: Deploy rooftop solar systems on buildings they operate. 
• Site energy contracts: Participate in green tariff programs with utilities and pursue new renewable projects through competitive site energy contracts. 
• Policy engagement: Support public policies that advances access to and the expansion of clean energy for Amazon and its customers.

“This is why in APAC we are working with organizations such as the Japan Climate Leaders’ Partnership (JCLP) in Japan, corporate Renewable Energy Demand Enhancement (REDE) initiative in India, Clean Energy Investment Accelerator (CEIA) Group in Indonesia, and the AI Leaders’ Group on Energy and Climate in Australia.”

“Countries in Asia can really learn from the collaboration between public and private partners in other markets that are enabling better renewable energy procurement mechanisms, making it easier for corporates to invest in utility-scale renewable energy projects in the region.”

The importance of cloud computing

Haig believes that a focus on collaboration and partnership in the industry and public sector in each market would be the way forward to meet the region’s clean energy needs. This sentiment is echoed by many in the industry, including the Asian Development Bank. 

Amazon works with a number of industry groups around the world that have already made very specific recommendations in this regard.  

A recent study by 451 Research found that businesses that move to cloud infrastructures can see a reduction of 78% in their carbon footprint. 

The same study found that if cloud service providers could power their operations on 100% renewable energy, there would be a further 15% boost to carbon reduction.

As for Amazon, they will be using the data and findings from the report to raise greater awareness amongst policymakers and regulators on the carbon reduction value of moving IT to AWS Cloud, and the additional value of making renewable energy more accessible for corporate purchase.

Amazon is also the co-founder of The Climate Pledge where signatories commit to eliminating carbon, responsible reporting, and credible offsets by 2040. This is 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. 

“We continue to invite more companies, including in APAC, to join The Climate Pledge and work together towards a low carbon future”, he added.  

Key players driving the RE mission in APAC

Renewable energy in the Asia Pacific is definitely increasing, and will further put a dent in the use of fossil fuels, even though the latter is still the dominant source of energy. 

Indeed, renewable energy is seen by many to be a key growth area in key APAC economies, as well as the world. According to ESCAP, leaders of these efforts are likely to be Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.

However, Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia, is showing a lot of promise in becoming Asia’s “next green powerhouse”. According to a World Bank report, Vietnam now boasts the highest installed capacity of solar power in Southeast Asia, generating 16,500MW at the end of 2020. Additionally, IRENA shows that Vietnam is in the top 10 countries in the world with the highest capacity of solar energy installed.

BMI Research states that China and India will be the chief drivers, adding 430 MW of new wind and solar through 2027. It also forecasts that India will add around 164 GW of non-hydro capacity over the decade, an increase of 165 percent on current installed capacity.

In the third part of this series, Tech Wire Asia will explore how what countries and businesses can do to drive the renewable energy mission in APAC.

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