(Credit: CWP Renewables)Fujitsu Australia has signed its first power purchase agreement (PPA), which it expects to significantly offset its carbon emissions as well as produce a considerable amount of power for its data center operations.
The 10-year agreement with CWP Renewables’ Sapphire Wind Farm will help the company reduce emissions by 30,000 metric tons a year. It will help power 40% of its North West Shelf (NWS) data center and will account for nearly 30% of Fujitsu’s annual electricity consumption in Australia, the company says.
The agreement is the largest PPA the Fujitsu Group has embarked on worldwide, the company says. It will also help it with its science-based emissions reduction targets.
The Sapphire Wind Farm is the largest in operation in NSW with a maximum capacity of 270 megawatts. The agreement will go into effect at the end of June.
Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand CEO Graeme Beardsell says renewable energy generation is an important piece of reducing the company’s energy consumption, carbon emissions and Scope 3 emissions in the region, especially with the energy-intensive data centers. He says the company will continue to explore opportunities to invest in PPAs from renewable projects in the region.
The transition to renewable energy supports Fujitsu’s overall progress toward carbon reductions throughout its global operations. The company has a goal to reduce carbon by more than 71% by 2030 based on 2013 levels.
Since 2018 Fujitsu Australia has reduced carbon emissions by more than 20% through a range of energy efficiency and renewable projects.
Those include a 99.6 kilowatt solar power installation at its Eight Mile Plains Data Center in Queensland, as well as using 100% renewable energy in its New Zealand operations since April 2020, which has been certified through the New Zealand Energy Certificate System. Fujitsu has also made carbon offset options available for customer electricity use across six data centers in Australia.
Data centers are at the forefront of sustainability and efficiency efforts, especially in the tech industry.
Facebook parent Meta recently secured solar energy from a facility in Tennessee as it builds sustainable data centers. Comcast added 250 megawatts of solar electricity that it says will power 12% of its operations in the United States, and digital infrastructure company Equinix issued $1.2 billion of green bonds this month to further support its data center efficiency initiatives.
Overall, Fujitsu says its data center operations are 35% more efficient than the market average.
