Hong Kong datacenters lack renewable energy options

19.06.2012
Datacenters in Hong Kong can never become greener -- because Hong Kong's government is lukewarm to the use of renewable energy."

"Despite an 18% growth in local datacenter floor space from 2010 to 2011, the government has no metrics for assessing the environmental impact of energy used to power datacenters," said Yau Yeung, Greenpeace's Clean Our Cloud campaigner in Hong Kong. "The problem will get worse because datacenters and cloud providers have no choice but to use 'dirty' energy produced by coal, gas, and nuclear power in Hong Kong."

The current local grid-power mix is 54% coal, 23% nuclear energy, and 23% natural gas, according to a recent Greenpeace report: "How Clean is your Cloud" -- the report adds that electricity generation accounts for 67% of local greenhouse gas emissions.

The local government proposes a token increase in the use of renewable energy by 2020: from currently less than 1% to 1-2%, said Yeung. "That means tech firms like Google -- which receives high marks for being more transparent about its energy use and committing to use renewable energy in our latest report -- won't be able to do the same at its Hong Kong datacenter, which is slated to go live in 2013," said Yeung.

Despite Google's green commitment, it declined to comment on Hong Kong's lack of renewable energy sources for its datacenter and its criteria in choosing datacenter locations.