Powering the Data-Center Boom with Low-Carbon Solutions

The report analyzes the environmental impact of the global data-center boom, identifying systemic challenges such as energy infrastructure lags and temporal-spatial mismatches between green power and demand. It proposes a comprehensive transformation pathway involving optimized site selection, enhanced energy efficiency through new metrics beyond PUE, and the adoption of diverse green power procurement options. The document emphasizes the potential for data centers to act as flexible grid resources and calls for mandatory carbon disclosure and standardized accounting to drive the transition.

• Global data-center electricity consumption is projected to grow significantly, potentially reaching 750–2,300 TWh by 2030, with annual carbon emissions estimated between 340 million and 1,040 million tons.
• In China, data-center electricity consumption is accelerating and could rise from 1.6% of total electricity consumption in 2023 to between 2.0% and 5.1% by 2030, depending on the growth scenario.
• The current reliance on Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) as the primary energy-efficiency metric is insufficient because it ignores the energy-saving potential of IT equipment and does not reflect total energy consumption.
• Implementing energy-efficiency measures in data centers can lead to substantial energy reductions: regular optimization of IT and cooling systems can reduce consumption by 35%, while extreme energy-saving scenarios could achieve up to 70% reduction.
• There is a significant spatial mismatch in China between data-center locations (historically concentrated in eastern coastal regions) and green power resources (abundant in central and western regions), which the East-to-West Computing Resource Transfer Project aims to address.
• Data centers can provide demand-side flexibility to the power grid by shifting offline workloads temporally or redirecting online workloads spatially, helping to integrate more renewable energy.
• The report identifies a lack of binding carbon-emissions regulations and standardized accounting methodologies for data centers, particularly regarding Scope 3 emissions and the definition of product-level carbon footprints for digital services.
• RMI estimates that targeted energy-saving retrofits for existing data centers in China could save approximately 15.5 TWh annually, with the highest potential savings (25%) found in small to medium-sized centers.

APA

Li, T., Li, W., Liao, D., Liu, Y., Liu, Z., Wang, G., Wang, M., & Xu, H. (2024). Powering the Data-Center Boom with Low-Carbon Solutions. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/11/Powering_the_Data_Center_Boom_with_Low_Carbon_Solutions_report.pdf

Chicago

Li, Ting, Wei Li, Dengfeng Liao, Yujing Liu, Ziyi Liu, Guangxu Wang, Meng Wang, and Hongyou Xu. Powering the Data-Center Boom with Low-Carbon Solutions. RMI, 2024. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/11/Powering_the_Data_Center_Boom_with_Low_Carbon_Solutions_report.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{li2024powering, author = {Li, Ting and Li, Wei and Liao, Dengfeng and Liu, Yujing and Liu, Ziyi and Wang, Guangxu and Wang, Meng and Xu, Hongyou}, title = {{Powering the Data-Center Boom with Low-Carbon Solutions}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2024}, month = nov, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/11/Powering_the_Data_Center_Boom_with_Low_Carbon_Solutions_report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }