How tech went big on green energy

Governments and utilities are not the only ones looking to reduce carbon emissions. Tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are making major pushes to lower the carbon emissions of the operations and supply chains through the purchase of renewable energy. 

Worldwide, the tech sector accounts for between 1.8 and 2.8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, so taking advantage of the low price of renewables is good business and sustainability sense. 

“Tech companies are big consumers of electricity because of their data centers, which need large amounts of power to keep the servers cool. The combined power usage of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple is more than 45 terawatt-hours a year, about as much as New Zealand. That amount will grow, as the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning demands more computing power…

…the buying power of the big tech companies has already had a huge impact on shaping the development of clean energy, particularly in the US. New installations of wind and solar reached record levels in the US in 2020, despite limited federal support for renewable energy during the Trump administration.”

Read the full story on Financial Times.  

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