Microsoft is changing the way it buys renewable energy

With a new renewable energy purchasing strategy, Microsoft hopes to push electricity grids to become clean. The tech giant is now striving to make a local impact in the places where it operates.

Since 2012, the company has purchased enough renewable energy to match the amount of juice it uses to power its operations globally. But Microsoft does not work 100% of the time with renewable energies. All those clean energy purchases are not necessarily linked to the same electrical networks to which the company is connected.

That could change if Microsoft succeeds in its new goal. By 2030, it wants to ensure that its clean energy purchases actually feed the local grids where it operates. The move is part of a larger effort within tech and environmental advocacy to ensure that heavy energy consumers help phase out dirty fossil fuels wherever they work.

“[In 2012], we were like a kid building with those big bulky wooden blocks. The tools and resources we had were somewhat rudimentary, ”says Brian Janous, general manager of energy at Microsoft. But those building blocks are evolving, Janous says.

The company is committed to being carbon negative by 2030, which means it plans to capture and store more carbon dioxide than it emits. The carbon removal technology needed to achieve this goal does not yet exist on a large scale, but Microsoft is spending money on its development.

Using less electricity in the first place will be key to meeting Microsoft’s climate goals. As part of that effort, the company tried to submerge its servers in the ocean and in liquid baths to make them more energy efficient.

When it comes to the use of renewables, Microsoft and other companies with a focus on tackling climate change have limited themselves to the amount of renewable energy that power grids can provide them. In the United States, renewable energies still only represent around 20% of the electricity mix. For example, companies like Microsoft, Apple and Facebook often rely on renewable energy credits to show that they are funneling money to renewable projects elsewhere, which helps offset some of their gas emissions. greenhouse effect.

In the future, this will not be enough for Microsoft to meet its new climate target. To get enough renewable energy produced locally, the company is starting to modify its power purchase agreements to demand more from its energy suppliers.

“What we’re heading towards is a model where we’re really working with our suppliers to say, ‘Look, we’ve got that goal and we’re releasing it publicly.’ Every hour of every day we need to generate zero carbon resources, ”Janous said. The edge.

Microsoft is now one of the largest renewable energy purchasing companies in the world, but it is not the only one focusing on local impact. Adobe, Google, Hewlett Packard and several environmental groups sent a letter to the Biden administration in March arguing for policies that support what they call “higher impact electricity supply.” It is a similar model of supplying renewable energy from nearby sources 24/7.

Last year, Google set a goal of running on clean electricity 24 hours a day by 2030. On an even larger scale, President Biden has set himself a goal of running America’s electricity grids at 100% clean energy by 2035.