Greenpeace: IT companies need to use more clean energy

Greenpeace: IT companies need to use more clean energyInformation technology (IT) companies are making the world a greener place by reducing paper-waste, allowing people to work in virtual offices, reducing travel and more. But the energy they use to power their vast, energy intensive data center warehouses is largely sourced from coal-fired power plants, making the “cloud” a much dirtier place than we’d like to think, according to Greenpeace’s newly released report (April 21) “How Dirty is Your Data?”

“If the Internet was a country, it would rank fifth for the amount of electricity usage, just below Japan and above Russia,” Greenpeace said. And the energy demand needed to power the companies leading the Internet revolution is growing at a rate of 12 percent annually.

The companies supporting everyone’s use of the Internet—companies like Google, Yahoo!, Apple, Facebook, Hewlett Packard and more—are becoming much more energy efficient, but that’s not enough, said Greenpeace spokesperson Daniel Kessler.

“Efficiency is great, but in aggregate, they’re still adding more demand for electricity. That new demand needs to be met by renewable energy and not coal,” he said.

The report graded companies on numerous things and was graded using Greenpeace’s Clean Energy Index, which was developed in response to the lack of useful information about energy use at data centers. Companies were also graded for their known use of coal-fired power, their transparency, infrastructure siting and their mitigation strategy. No company got an A. Although, a few companies, Akamai, IBM, Google, and Yahoo! got Bs in certain categories.

Google, which recently announced numerous large-scale renewable energy investments, like the $168 million investment in the 392-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, received a B for its mitigation strategy, for instance. And Yahoo! got a B for its decision to site its data centers in regions with more renewable generation.

“Yahoo! has two things going for it. It has a transparent siting policy and a mitigation goal of 45 percent,” Kessler said.

Looking forward, Greenpeace wants to see more transparency and the companies purchasing more renewable energy, both onsite and through other purchasing agreements, according to Kessler.

“Onsite is a good thing, like Facebook did in Prinevillle, but they have to scale it up. The companies are going to have to do a lot of purchasing,” he said.

Despite Facebook’s recently announced 100 kilowatt solar array at its new Prineville, Ore. data center, the company’s highest grade in the report was a D.

“Clearly they [i.e., IT companies] need more pressure,” Kessler said. “We’re working inside and outside to make sure they know they can grow without adding more coal or nuclear. A lot of companies are starting to get this, but we need to move a lot faster.”