Microsoft’s clean energy push involves powering its global datacenters using renewable energy. The company plans to use renewable sources like wind, solar and hydro for 50 percent of the energy needs at its 100 datacenters spread across 40 countries.
Under Karnataka government’s program to encourage investments in solar energy operations, the company has signed a deal with Atria Power, a Bengaluru-based clean energy producer. Under the agreement, Microsoft will purchase 3 megawatts (MW) of solar electricity from Atria Power to satisfy 80 percent of energy requirements at the company’s new facility in Bengaluru. The agreement gives a boost to the renewable energy sector in India, showcasing rising demand for cleaner power consumption by large corporations.
Microsoft’s first renewable energy deal in Asia happened recently in Singapore, which is home to Azure, Office 365, and other cloud services for its Southeast Asian customers. The company will purchase energy from Sunseap’s 60 MW solar project over a period of 20 years. Once completed, this will be the largest rooftop solar project in Singapore.
Following Microsoft’s footsteps, other IT corporations that rely on hyper scale cloud and datacenter services of giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook are also shifting towards clean energy. Tech companies are signing wind and solar power agreements across Asia and Europe. This shift highlights the importance of sustainable energy consumption, which will not only help in solving climate change issues, but also save large corporations and their customers millions of dollars in operational costs.
