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Akamai’s Innovation and Collaboration In Renewable Energy

by Mike Mattera on October 11, 2019

The energy footprint of the IT sector is estimated at 7% of global electricity consumption, according to Greenpeace International. And, although the data center and colocation industry is a small segment of the IT sector, it represents a large portion of its power consumption. By 2020, the power consumption for operating and cooling data centers is anticipated to reach a staggering 73 billion kWh and will greatly affect CO2 emissions. As the world increasingly addresses the effects of climate change, the IT sector – and Akamai as a part of it – should be part of the solution.

Akamai is committed to multiple, innovative and collaborative projects to lessen our own environmental footprint and improve the global impact of our industry:

In 2017, Akamai developed and launched a renewable energy aggregation methodology, a game-changing approach for smaller buyers to invest in renewable energy projects when they had not been able to before.
In 2019, Akamai applied this methodology by opening two of our three renewable energy projects: the first, a wind farm in Seymour Hills, TX generating 26,000 MWh of power a year and powering our Texas area data center operations and the second, a wind farm in Green River Illinois generating 23,000 MWh of power a year. With each of these projects, Akamai is adding new renewable energy to the grid and partnering with companies like Etsy and Swiss Re on the first corporate aggregated VPPAs in the U.S.
In 2019, Akamai became one of the founding adopters of Iron Mountain’s Green Power Pass, a first-of-its-kind solution in the data center industry for organizations seeking a transparent, industry endorsed accounting process to validate that 100 percent of the power they use at Iron Mountain data centers is from qualifying renewable resources.
Our third planned renewal energy initiative, a solar project in Virginia, is expected to come online in 2020 and contribute 50,000+ MWh green power a year. We have partnered with Apple, Microsoft, Etsy and the University of Richmond.

As we look beyond 2020, Akamai intends to continue to be a leader in innovating and collaborating towards a more sustainable future.

If you would like to learn more about Akamai’s Sustainability program, please reach out to us: [email protected].