Japan’s data centre operator Marunouchi Direct Acess Ltd has said that since the beginning of the month, electricity needs of all of its data centres are being met solely with renewable power.
Marunouchi Direct is a joint venture between Japan’s Mitsubishi Estate Co Ltd and Marubeni Corp. The move is made under the RE100 global renewable energy corporate pledge to become carbon neutral, using the feed-in tariff (FIT) for non-fossil fuel energy certificates to track the energy sources, according to a report in Renewables Now.
With this initiative, Marunouchi expects to reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of all three Tokyo-based data centres it operates by 9,800 tonnes per year, equivalent to the CO2 discharges from 3,400 ordinary homes, the report said. In November 2021, Hyperscale data centre specialist, AirTrunk unveiled its first data centre in Japan, AirTrunk TOK1 (TOK1).
The new state-of-the-art facility is scalable to over 300 megawatts (MW), which will make it the country’s largest data centre campus. Similarly, in October, Singapore headquartered ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) announced plans for two data centres in Tokyo, to be developed by and leased from Goodman. Read more: https://w.media/st-telemedia-global-data-centres-goodman-to-launch-2-new-data-centres-in-japan/
These developments need to be seen in the backdrop of the Japanese Growth Strategy Council has called for boosting domestic economic growth through stimulating innovations, digital transformation being a key area. 5G is also expected to become the dominant cellular technology in Japan by 2026, with an estimated 151 million 5G subscriptions in the country by 2029.
Large hyperscale data centres will play a crucial role in the support of digital transformation initiatives and the expansion of 5G communication services.