China tech giants wake up to renewable energy, but fossil fuels still dominate as electricity source

Fifteen of the country’s biggest cloud-storage and independent data centre companies ranked on their use of renewables

Some are increasingly powered by wind and solar energy, but many are lagging in disclosure compared to their global counterparts, report says

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China’s data centres are expected to increase their electricity consumption by 66 per cent from 2019 to 2023, according to Greenpeace. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 11:15am, 11 Jan 2020Updated: 2:10pm, 19 May 2021

China’s biggest technology companies, such as e-commerce giant Alibaba and search-engine provider Baidu, are using more renewable energy to power their businesses. But they have a long way to go if they wish to be corporate leaders in the shift away from the fossil fuels blamed for global warming.

In the first renewable energy rankings for China’s largest technology and internet companies released on Thursday, the businesses were scored based on energy data transparency, energy efficiency and carbon reduction, renewable energy use and commitment, and government and industry influence.

The report assessed the renewable energy record of China’s 15 biggest cloud-storage and independent data centre companies, which comprise 70 per cent of the country’s cloud storage and more than 85 per cent of independent data centres. It was compiled by Greenpeace East Asia and the North China Electric Power University in Beijing.

Chindata Group, which specialises in running data storage centres, came top of the renewable energy rankings with a score of 80 out of a possible 100.

E-commerce and technology giant Alibaba Group came in second with 60, while rival Tencent Holdings followed in third with 52. GDS, another leading data centre operator, was ranked fourth with a score of 48, just beating search-engine specialist Baidu in fifth with 46. (Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.)

“There’s explosive growth and demand for data, servers and data centres in China, so the power consumption in this industry is also skyrocketing,” Greenpeace East Asia climate and energy campaigner Ye Ruiqi said. “It’s imperative that Chinese internet giants lead the sector to break away from its reliance on coal.”