1. | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY |
1.1. | What is a data center? |
1.2. | Leading global data center hyperscalers |
1.3. | Data center sustainability metrics |
1.4. | Scope of IDTechEx's data center decarbonization report |
1.5. | Introduction to Basic Definitions |
1.6. | Motivations behind data center sustainability and carbon reductions |
1.7. | Current picture: Data Center CO2 emissions |
1.8. | Power demand from data centers will increase significantly over the coming decade |
1.9. | Data centers get power from the grid |
1.10. | Which sustainable technologies can have the biggest impact (1/2)? |
1.11. | Which sustainable technologies can have the biggest impact (2/2)? |
1.12. | Renewable energy portfolios of data center hyperscalers |
1.13. | Methods of accounting for scope 2 (power-based) emissions are coming under scrutiny |
1.14. | Comparison of different power sources for data centers |
1.15. | Cost comparison of different energy sources |
1.16. | Wind and solar power dominate the renewable energy portfolios of data centers |
1.17. | Outlook for solar energy for data centers (1/2) |
1.18. | Outlook for solar energy for data centers (2/2) |
1.19. | Outlook for wind energy for data centers |
1.20. | Outlook: Small modular reactors aim to make nuclear power economically viable |
1.21. | Fuel cells for data centers |
1.22. | Outlook: batteries and energy storage for data centers |
1.23. | Savings from carbon free energy forecast: 2025-2035 |
1.24. | Policies for data center decarbonization |
1.25. | Regional Actions on Reducing GHG Emission |
1.26. | Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) |
1.27. | Cooling - an important consideration for overall energy efficiency, IT equipment performance, and GHG emission |
1.28. | Key Actions of Enabling Sustainable Data Centers Through Enhanced Energy Efficiency - Summary |
1.29. | Cooling Technology Comparison |
1.30. | Quantifying Carbon Reduction - Air and Direct-to-Chip Cooling |
1.31. | Electrical and IT Efficiency |
1.32. | Scope 2: Global Data Center Lifecycle CO2e (Market-Based Method) Forecast: 2021-2035 |
1.33. | CO2 emissions of data centers - Scope 3 |
1.34. | Scope 2 and Scope 3 CO2e forecast (market-based): 2021-2035 |
1.35. | IT makes the largest contribution to embodied carbon |
1.36. | Manufacturing/Embodied GHG Emission - IT Componentry Level Split |
1.37. | Construction of data centers increases scope 3 emissions |
1.38. | Book and claim system for low-carbon construction |
1.39. | Data center hyperscalers purchase carbon removal credits for emissions that cannot be otherwise reduced |
2. | INTRODUCTION |
2.1. | Overview |
2.1.1. | What is a data center? |
2.1.2. | Data center sustainability metrics |
2.1.3. | Scope of IDTechEx's data center decarbonization report |
2.1.4. | Data Center CO2 emissions |
2.1.5. | Motivations behind data center sustainability and carbon reductions |
2.1.6. | Leading global data center hyperscalers |
2.1.7. | Introduction to Basic Definitions |
2.1.8. | CO2 emissions of data center hyperscalers - scope 2: market-based vs location-based |
2.1.9. | CO2 emissions of data center hyperscalers |
2.1.10. | CO2 emissions of data center hyperscalers - scope 3 |
2.1.11. | GHG Emission Targets From Hyperscalers and Colocators |
2.1.12. | Policies for data center decarbonization |
2.1.13. | Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) |
2.1.14. | Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) |
2.1.15. | Regional Actions on Reducing GHG Emission |
2.1.16. | Hyperscale data centers are the most efficient |
2.1.17. | Data Center Equipment - Top Level Overview |
2.1.18. | Operating Emission Factors for Cloud Computing CPUs |
2.1.19. | Operating Emission Factors for Cloud Computing CPUs - Trend Analysis |
2.1.20. | Total Carbon Emission: Manufacturing + Operating + EoL + Transportation |
2.2. | Actions of leading data center owners for sourcing clean energy and related technologies |
2.2.1. | A Summary of Recent Announcements of Leading Data Center Owners Sourcing Clean Energy and Related Technologies - Carbon Credits |
2.2.2. | A Summary of Recent Announcements of Leading Data Center Owners Sourcing Clean Energy and Related Technologies - Nuclear |
2.2.3. | A Summary of Recent Announcements of Leading Data Center Owners Sourcing Clean Energy and Related Technologies - Other Renewables |
3. | DECARBONIZED POWER GENERATION FOR DATA CENTERS |
3.1. | Introduction |
3.1.1. | Data centers consume large amounts of power globally |
3.1.2. | Data centers get power from the grid |
3.1.3. | Carbon intensity of power production varies geographically |
3.1.4. | Ways for data centers to decarbonize power and lower scope 2 emissions |
3.1.5. | Purchase low-carbon power: Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) |
3.1.6. | Purchase low-carbon power: Power purchasing agreements (PPAs) |
3.1.7. | Clean Transition Tariffs |
3.1.8. | Renewable energy portfolios of data center hyperscalers |
3.1.9. | Should the location of renewable power generation matter? |
3.1.10. | Benchmarking electricity sources |
3.1.11. | Comparison of different power sources for data centers |
3.1.12. | Cost comparison of different renewable energy sources |
3.1.13. | Wind and solar power dominate the renewable energy portfolios of data centers |
3.1.14. | Microgrids for data centers |
3.1.15. | Low-carbon microgrids for data centers: case studies (1/2) |
3.1.16. | Low-carbon microgrids for data centers: case studies (2/2) |
3.1.17. | Energy storage: the importance of batteries and hydrogen |
3.1.18. | Low-carbon energy technologies for data center power generation within the scope of this report |
3.2. | Solar |
3.2.1. | Solar Installation Capacity Summary |
3.2.2. | Solar energy - challenges of intermittency and energy storage solutions |
3.2.3. | Other challenges of solar in data centers - Intermittency and Footprint |
3.2.4. | Outlook for solar energy in data centers (1/2) |
3.2.5. | Outlook for solar energy in data centers (2/2) |
3.3. | Wind |
3.3.1. | Wind power introduction |
3.3.2. | Power Efficiency and Wind Turbine Model (1/2) |
3.3.3. | Power Efficiency and Wind Turbine Model (2/2) |
3.3.4. | Approaches of getting wind energy powered data centers (1/2) |
3.3.5. | Approaches of getting wind energy powered data centers (2/2) |
3.3.6. | Wind and solar combined solution - actions from leading tech companies |
3.3.7. | Solutions to stabilize the wind power supply |
3.4. | Geothermal |
3.4.1. | Introduction to geothermal power |
3.4.2. | Regions with high geothermal potential |
3.4.3. | Introduction to enhanced geothermal systems |
3.4.4. | Economics of enhanced geothermal systems |
3.4.5. | Geothermal power for data centers |
3.4.6. | Enhanced geothermal systems for data centers: Sage Geosystems and Fervo Energy |
3.4.7. | Outlook: Geothermal energy for data centers |
3.5. | Nuclear Power - Large-Scale, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), and Nuclear Fusion |
3.5.1. | With the aim of decarbonization, nuclear energy poses potential compared with other renewables |
3.5.2. | Large-scale nuclear reactors |
3.5.3. | Small modular reactors (SMRs): what and why? |
3.5.4. | Small modular reactors |
3.5.5. | SMRs could work alongside renewable energy systems towards decarbonization |
3.5.6. | Where are the SMR projects? |
3.5.7. | SMR technology in development |
3.5.8. | A Summary of Recent Announcements of Leading Data Center Owners Sourcing Clean Energy and Related Technologies - Nuclear |
3.5.9. | Which SMR reactor design will be favoured by data center players? |
3.5.10. | What is holding back SMRs? |
3.5.11. | Are SMRs safer than large nuclear power plants? |
3.5.12. | Conclusions: SMRs aim to make nuclear power economically viable |
3.5.13. | Potentials on nuclear fusion |
3.6. | Fuel cells and hydrogen |
3.6.1. | Fuel cells for data centers |
3.6.2. | The importance of back-up power: significant consequences for data center downtime (1/2) |
3.6.3. | The importance of back-up power: significant consequences for data center downtime (2/2) |
3.6.4. | Advantages of hydrogen |
3.6.5. | What are fuel cells? |
3.6.6. | Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) technology overview |
3.6.7. | Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology overview |
3.6.8. | Data centers: PEMFCs and SOFCs |
3.6.9. | Data centres and telecom application technology considerations |
3.6.10. | Technology benchmarking for data centres and telecommunications applications |
3.6.11. | The hydrogen economy and its impact on the fuel cell market |
3.6.12. | Status of hydrogen |
3.6.13. | Barriers remain for low-carbon hydrogen |
3.6.14. | Key players for PEMFC and SOFC stationary fuel cells |
3.6.15. | PEMFC data center case studies: projects use hydrogen |
3.6.16. | SOFC data center case studies: projects use natural gas instead of hydrogen |
3.6.17. | Outlook: Hydrogen fuel cells in data centers |
3.7. | Batteries and energy storage |
3.7.1. | Batteries for data center energy storage |
3.7.2. | UPS battery technologies |
3.7.3. | Grid-interactive UPS technologies |
3.7.4. | Batteries for back-up power generation in data centers - case studies |
3.7.5. | BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems) for data centers - renewable energy storage |
3.7.6. | BESS for data centers - other behind-the-meter deployment |
3.7.7. | Front-of-meter BESS for data centers |
3.7.8. | Grid-scale energy storage: the rise of Li-ion |
3.7.9. | Key players in grid-scale Li-ion BESS |
3.7.10. | Outlook: batteries and energy storage for data centers |
4. | ENERGY EFFICIENCY FOR DATA CENTERS |
4.1. | Introduction |
4.1.1. | Key Actions of Enabling Sustainable Data Centers Through Enhanced Energy Efficiency - Summary |
4.1.2. | Avenues to improve efficiencies |
4.1.3. | Data center's system power consumption by component and efficiency metrics |
4.2. | Thermal efficiency |
4.2.1. | Increasing TDP Drives More Efficient Thermal Management |
4.2.2. | Thermal Level - Data Center Cooling Supply Chain |
4.2.3. | Historic Data of TDP - GPU |
4.2.4. | TDP Trend: Historic Data and Forecast Data - CPU |
4.2.5. | Cooling Methods Overview |
4.2.6. | Cooling Technology Comparison |
4.2.7. | Cooling Technology Comparison (2) |
4.2.8. | Liquid Cooling - Power Limitation of Different Cooling on Rack Level |
4.2.9. | Different Cooling on Chip Level |
4.2.10. | Air Cooling Configuration in Data Centers |
4.2.11. | Hybrid Liquid-to-Air Cooling Configuration in Data Centers |
4.2.12. | Hybrid Liquid-to-Liquid Cooling Configuration in Data Centers |
4.2.13. | Hybrid Liquid-to-Refrigerant Cooling Configuration in Data Centers |
4.2.14. | Hybrid Refrigerant-to-Refrigerant Cooling Configuration in Data Centers |
4.2.15. | Quantifying Carbon Reduction - Air and Direct-to-Chip Cooling |
4.2.16. | GHG emission by cooling method |
4.2.17. | Water consumption by cooling method |
4.2.18. | Actions of Amazon AWS in Enhancing Thermal Efficiency |
4.2.19. | Actions of Microsoft in Enhancing Thermal Efficiency |
4.2.20. | Actions of Google in Enhancing Thermal Efficiency |
4.2.21. | Actions of Meta in Enhancing Thermal Efficiency |
4.2.22. | Cooling Tower - Adiabatic Cooling |
4.2.23. | Balance Between Water Use and Power Use - Case by Case in Practice |
4.2.24. | Use Case: Jaeggi - Adiabatic and Hybrid Dry Coolers |
4.3. | IT efficiency |
4.3.1. | Power demand from data centers will increase significantly over the coming decade |
4.3.2. | Key assumptions Driving Data Center Power Demand - ROI Has Significant Impacts on the Power Demand Projection |
4.3.3. | Key assumptions Driving Data Center Power Demand - Power Efficiency Gains |
4.3.4. | Data Center Power Forecast By Hyperscalers, Colocators, and Enterprise Users: 2013-2035 |
4.3.5. | Data Center Carbon Emission by Data Center Type |
4.3.6. | Energy Efficiency Increase on Componentry Level Covered in This Report |
4.3.7. | Critical IT components for data centers |
4.3.8. | Server level: CO2e and water consumption with and without renewable energy |
4.3.9. | Enhanced Efficiency of Data Center Component - Purpose-Built Chips |
4.3.10. | Trend Towards a Higher Power Efficiency - Enhanced Efficiency of CPU |
4.3.11. | Trend Towards a Lower Power per Unit of Compute Speed - Enhanced Efficiency of GPUs |
4.3.12. | GHG Emission of Hard Disks - HDDs and SSDs |
4.3.13. | Manufacturing GHG Emission Per GB of Storage - HDDs Offer Reduced CO2e |
4.3.14. | Capacity/Power (GB/W) - Enhanced Memory Module Efficiency |
4.4. | Electrical efficiency |
4.4.1. | Electrical Level - Data Center Power Components Supply Chain |
4.4.2. | Efficient UPS Systems |
4.4.3. | Efficient Power Conversion - Power Electronics in Data Centers |
4.4.4. | Efficient Power Conversion - Si IGBT to SiC MOSFETs |
4.4.5. | Potential for GaN - Combination of SiC and GaN might be the solution |
4.4.6. | Reduced climate impact for GaN |
4.4.7. | Ongoing Transition from 12V to 48V Power Supply |
4.4.8. | Intelligent Monitoring Tools and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) Software to Track Energy Usage in Real-Time |
5. | ADDITIONAL SCOPE 3 DECARBONIZATION FOR DATA CENTERS |
5.1. | Introduction |
5.1.1. | CO2 emissions of data centers - scope 3 |
5.2. | Carbon credits/CO2 offsetting |
5.2.1. | What is a carbon credit and carbon offsetting? |
5.2.2. | Carbon removal vs carbon avoidance offsetting |
5.2.3. | The approach of data center hyperscalers towards CO2 offsetting |
5.2.4. | Overall Voluntary Carbon Markets |
5.2.5. | High-quality carbon removals: durability, permanence, additionality |
5.2.6. | Technology Readiness Level (TRL): Carbon dioxide removal methods that can generate carbon credits |
5.2.7. | Carbon dioxide removal technology benchmarking |
5.2.8. | Status and potential of CDR technologies |
5.2.9. | How are carbon credits certified? |
5.2.10. | Carbon crediting programs |
5.2.11. | The role of carbon registries in the credit market |
5.2.12. | How are voluntary carbon credits purchased? |
5.2.13. | The carbon removal market players |
5.2.14. | Data center hyperscalers are the biggest durable carbon removal buyers |
5.2.15. | Advanced market commitment in CDR |
5.2.16. | Ensuring high quality credits |
5.2.17. | Shifting buyer preferences for durable CDR in carbon credit markets |
5.2.18. | Pre-purchases still dominate the durable CDR space |
5.2.19. | Prices of CDR credits |
5.2.20. | How expensive are durable carbon removals credits? |
5.2.21. | Current CDR carbon credit prices by company and technology |
5.2.22. | Biochar: Key takeaways |
5.2.23. | Introduction to BECCS |
5.2.24. | Significant growth possible for BECCS over the next decade |
5.2.25. | Biomass burial for CO2 removal |
5.2.26. | Bio-oil geological storage for CDR |
5.2.27. | What is direct air capture (DAC)? |
5.2.28. | Challenges associated with DAC technology |
5.2.29. | Players targeting 70 Mtpa of DACCS capacity in 2030 |
5.2.30. | Direct Air Capture Technology Landscape |
5.2.31. | Solid sorbents are the leading DACCS technology |
5.2.32. | On-site direct air capture for data centers |
5.2.33. | Afforestation and reforestation: key takeaways |
5.2.34. | "Just plant more trees!" - sustainability and greenwashing considerations |
5.2.35. | Mineralization: key takeaways |
5.2.36. | Ocean-based NETs |
5.2.37. | Ocean-based CDR: key takeaways |
5.2.38. | Carbon dioxide removal capacity forecast by technology (million metric tons of CO2 per year), 2024-2044 |
5.2.39. | Carbon credits and Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement |
5.3. | Green concrete and green steel: low-carbon construction |
5.3.1. | Construction of data centers is increasing |
5.3.2. | Book and claim system for low-carbon construction |
5.3.3. | Contribution of concrete to data center CO2 footprint |
5.3.4. | How much concrete and steel is needed to build a data center? |
5.3.5. | How much does data center construction cost? |
5.3.6. | Precast concrete in data center construction |
5.3.7. | Low-carbon concrete requires cement decarbonization technologies |
5.3.8. | Benchmarking cement decarbonization technologies |
5.3.9. | Why is cement production hard to decarbonize? |
5.3.10. | How much will the green premium be for decarbonized cement? |
5.3.11. | Cement decarbonization - Analyst viewpoint: Benchmarking of cement decarbonization technologies |
5.3.12. | Technologies for cement decarbonization - megatonnes per annum of CO2 avoided (2025-2035) |
5.3.13. | Introduction to supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) |
5.3.14. | What are the leading supplementary cementitious materials? |
5.3.15. | Data center hyperscalers have formed partnerships with low-carbon concrete start-ups |
5.3.16. | CO2 as a performance enhancing additive |
5.3.17. | Microbial biocement (calcium carbonate cement) |
5.3.18. | New calcium silicate cements start-ups |
5.3.19. | Electrochemical cement processing |
5.3.20. | CO2 utilization enables alternative cementitious materials through mineralization |
5.3.21. | Role of steel in data centers |
5.3.22. | Overview of decarbonization technologies for the steel sector |
5.3.23. | Tech companies' interest in green steel |
5.3.24. | Data center hyperscalers have formed partnerships with low-carbon steel players |
5.3.25. | Cross-laminated timber as a low-carbon construction material |
5.4. | Manufacturing/embodied carbon |
5.4.1. | Scope 3 data center emissions - the importance of embodied carbon |
5.4.2. | IT makes the largest contribution to embodied carbon |
5.4.3. | Manufacturing/Embodied Carbon Emission: Motherboard + Hard Disks |
5.4.4. | GHG Emission of Hard Disks - HDDs and SSDs |
5.4.5. | Manufacturing/Embodied GHG Emission Per GB of Storage - SSDs and HDDs for Data Center/HPC Servers |
5.4.6. | Manufacturing/Embodied GHG Emission - Componentry Level Split |
5.4.7. | Memory Storage Drive Reuse - Critical Way to Reduce GHG Emission as Storage Drives have Significant GHG Emission from Manufacturing |
6. | FORECASTS |
6.1. | CO2e/kWh versus carbon-free energy adoption rate |
6.2. | Trend of CO2e over time and methodology of forecasting grid carbon intensity |
6.3. | Grid Carbon Density Forecast (Market-Based, Kg/kWh): 2019-2035 |
6.4. | Scope 2: Global Data Center Lifecycle CO2e (Market-based Method) Forecast: 2021-2035 |
6.5. | Scope 2 and Scope 3 CO2e forecast (market-based): 2021-2035 |
6.6. | Savings from carbon free energy forecast: 2025-2035 |
6.7. | Carbon credits for data center forecast: 2023-2035 |
7. | SUPPLEMENTARY FORECASTS |
7.1. | Data Center Power and Electricity Forecast: 2013-2035 |
7.2. | Historic Data of TDP - GPU |
7.3. | TDP Trend: Historic Data and Forecast Data - CPU |
7.4. | Data Center Power Forecast By Hyperscalers, Colocators, and Enterprise Users: 2013-2035 |
7.5. | Technologies for cement decarbonization - megatonnes per annum of CO2 avoided (2025-2035) |
7.6. | Carbon dioxide removal capacity forecast by technology (million metric tons of CO2 per year), 2024-2044 |
8. | COMPANY PROFILES |
8.1. | Decarbonized power generation: |
8.1.1. | Ballard Power Systems |
8.1.2. | Bloom Energy |
8.1.3. | Ceres |
8.1.4. | Fluence — Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) |
8.1.5. | NuScale Power |
8.1.6. | Plug Power |
8.1.7. | Sage Geosystems |
8.2. | Carbon dioxide removal: |
8.2.1. | Airhive |
8.2.2. | BC Biocarbon |
8.2.3. | Captura |
8.2.4. | Carbo Culture |
8.2.5. | Carbofex |
8.2.6. | CarbonBlue |
8.2.7. | CarbonCapture Inc. |
8.2.8. | Carbyon |
8.2.9. | Equatic |
8.2.10. | Graphyte |
8.2.11. | Heirloom |
8.2.12. | neustark |
8.2.13. | Noya |
8.2.14. | O.C.O Technology |
8.2.15. | Phlair |
8.2.16. | PyroCCS |
8.2.17. | Takachar |
8.2.18. | UNDO |
8.3. | Decarbonized concrete and steel |
8.3.1. | Aker Carbon Capture |
8.3.2. | Ardent |
8.3.3. | Biomason |
8.3.4. | Cambridge Electric Cement |
8.3.5. | Capsol Technologies |
8.3.6. | Carbonaide |
8.3.7. | Coolbrook |
8.3.8. | HYBRIT |
8.3.9. | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries: KM CDR Process |
8.3.10. | Solidia Technologies |
8.3.11. | Svante |
8.4. | Data Center Cooling |
8.4.1. | Accelsius — Two-Phase Direct-to-Chip Cooling |
8.4.2. | Amazon AWS Data Center |
8.4.3. | Arieca |
8.4.4. | Asperitas Immersed Computing |
8.4.5. | Calyos: Data Center Applications |
8.4.6. | Engineered Fluids |
8.4.7. | Green Revolution Cooling (GRC) |
8.4.8. | Henkel: microTIM and data centers |
8.4.9. | LiquidCool Solutions |
8.4.10. | LiSAT |
8.4.11. | Nano-Join |
8.4.12. | NeoFan |
8.4.13. | Neurok Thermocon Inc |
8.4.14. | Parker Lord: Dispensable Gap Fillers |
8.4.15. | Resonac Holdings |
8.4.16. | Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd |
8.4.17. | Taybo (Shanghai) Environmental Technology Co., Ltd |
8.4.18. | Tyson |
8.4.19. | Vertiv Holdings - Data Center Liquid Cooling |
8.4.20. | ZutaCore |