"The end of computing power is electricity." How does green electricity promote computing collaboration?

Today's world is entering the digital era. Matter, energy and information have become the three major elements of human society's development, and data, networks and computing are everywhere. At present, the annual growth rate of the digital economy is 1.5 times the overall economic growth rate, and the proportion of the digital economy in the GDP of major countries is increasing, reaching nearly 50%. In the future, the digital economy and cyberspace will become the main battlefield for international competition.

In August, the "Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Power System (2024-2027)" jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and the National Data Administration, which clearly proposes to integrate and regulate resources, improve the level of coordinated operation of computing power and electricity, and improve the data center.Green ElectricThe proportion and reduce the demand for power grid guarantee capacity.

Computing power demand and carbon emissions are growing rapidly

my country's computing power industry is developing rapidly. The "National Information Development Report (2023)" recently released by the State Internet Information Office shows that my country's comprehensive computing power infrastructure has remained the second largest in the world; as of the end of 2023, the number of in-use racks that provide computing power services reached 8.1 million standard racks, with a total computing power scale exceeding 230 EFLOPS (the ability to complete tens of billions of floating-point operations per second), of which the intelligent computing power scale reaches 70 EFLOPS, and more than half of the new computing power infrastructure, becoming a new engine for computing power growth. There are more than 10 supercomputing centers recognized by the Ministry of Science and Technology, more than 600 super-large and large data centers under construction, and more than 60 smart computing centers.

"The end of computing power is electricity", especially the demand for electricity in large models represented by ChatGPT is growing. According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data centers consume about 460 terawatt hours in 2022Power(Equivalent to 2% of global total demand). With the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence, this number may expand to 620 to 1,050 terawatt hours by 2026.

There is no exact figure in the power consumption of data centers in my country, but based on data from the National Energy Administration and other parties, the annual power consumption of data centers in the country is about 200 billion kilowatt-hours, which is twice the current annual power generation of the Three Gorges Power Station. The trend is certain - the annual growth rate of power consumption in data centers is the fastest among all industries.

In terms of carbon emissions, data released by the Data Center Committee of the China Communications Industry Association in the past two years showed that a data center with 1,500 8-kilowatt racks, calculated based on a 10-year life cycle, a usage rate of 75%, and a PUE value (the ratio of all energy consumed by the data center to the energy consumed by IT loads) of 1.5, with an average annual carbon emissions reaching 80,000 tons.

Against the background of achieving the "dual carbon" goal, my country's Internet Data Center (IDC) energy consumption and carbon emissions are also increasing significantly. The current carbon emissions are about 163 million tons/year, equivalent to 326 million cars traveling 20,000 kilometers in cities every year, and growing at a rate of about 20% per year. Although the proportion of my country's total carbon emissions is not large, the growth rate is relatively high than that of other industries.

Be fast.

The demand for green computing power industry has surged

Electricity, especially green power, is the basic driving force supporting the high-quality development of computing power and may also determine the height of the computing power industry in the future. From the perspective of global energy development trends, there are two points that are recognized and irreversible: one is the digitalization of energy, and the other is the greening of energy. Renewable energy, whether it is installed capacity or power generation, will be more and more high in proportion, and the proportion of energy and electricity consumption at terminals will be higher and higher. This is the common vision of the world and a common goal.

The computing power industry is facing increasingly urgent pressure on green electricity supply and energy-saving. From the state to the local government, policies on the supply of green energy in data centers have been successively issued, such as the requirements for PUE, especially the recent "Opinions on Accelerating the Comprehensive Green Transformation of Economic and Social Development" issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, aiming to promote the comprehensive green and low-carbon transformation of the economy and society.

The "Special Action Plan for Green and Low-carbon Development of Data Centers" jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Energy Administration, and the National Data Administration specifically mentioned that the proportion of green electricity in newly built data centers at national hub nodes accounts for more than 80%. Research shows that the future demand for green electricity in data centers will be at least 100 billion kilowatt-hours. Compared with the nationalGreen Electric TradingThe scale of this demand is huge. Internet companies such as Apple have set relatively radical goals for environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) assessments, announcing that they will achieve carbon neutrality ahead of schedule by 2030.

The greening of data centers has also entered a stage of rapid development under the guidance of national policies. Currently, there are only 196 national green data centers recognized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Traditional Internet data centers in my country account for a large proportion, which leads to the PUE of my country's Internet data centers being not particularly ideal. The goals proposed by the "Special Action Plan for Green and Low-Carbon Development of Data Centers" are: by the end of 2025, the average PUE of national data centers will drop below 1.5, the annual average annual growth of renewable energy utilization rate by 10%, and the average unit computing power energy efficiency and carbon efficiency will be significantly improved; by the end of 2030, the average power utilization efficiency, unit computing power energy efficiency and carbon efficiency of national data centers will reach the international advanced level, and the utilization rate of renewable energy will be further improved, and the utilization rate of waste heat of newly built large and above data centers in northern heating areas will be significantly improved.

Possible paths for computer collaboration

Computing power storage and computing are inseparable from the support of electricity. Power systems with high proportion of power electronics require digital technology, especially artificial intelligence technology. The integrated development of power and computing power and mutual empowerment are issues that need to be discussed in the future. There are many other aspects in terms of technology applications, market environment, business models, etc.

difficulty.

The "Action Plan for High-Quality Development of Computing Power Infrastructure" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in October 2023 puts forward the requirements for coordinated development of computing power + energy. In August 2024, the "Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Power System (2024-2027)" jointly issued by the three ministries and commissions, proposing to implement a number of projects for computing power and power coordination.

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed to build a national unified power market. An important aspect of computer collaboration is to break through obstacles in institutional and mechanisms. Energy transformation is giving birth to possible paths and new models for renewable energy to support the development of computing power. Some have been implemented, while others are still exploring.

First, direct supply of green electricity is to directly supply the electricity from renewable energy power plants to the Internet data center. The Three Gorges Dongyuemiao data center built by the Three Gorges Group does not require diesel generators, but uses completely renewable green hydropower, fundamentally replacing traditional fossil energy and achieving the goal of a zero-carbon data center.

The second is the integrated model of source, network, load and storage. It is somewhat similar to the integrated energy model and needs to face a number of challenges in the future, such as determining appropriate energy storage capacity, sharing of investment responsibilities and amortization methods. The "National Integrated Computing Power Network" and the Ringer Data Center Cluster Green Energy Supply Demonstration Project are currently under construction, with a planned overall scale of 3.95 million kilowatts, including 3 million kilowatts of wind power, 950,000 kilowatts of centralized photovoltaic, 1 million kilowatts of electrochemical energy storage/4 million kilowatt hours and appropriately proportioned hydrogen energy storage will provide valuable experience for the data center's green power direct supply model.

The third is the green power trading model. This model is to buy green power transmitted from the power grid, but it requires an additional premium. For example, Gui'an Apple Data Center in Gui'an, Guizhou requires all green electricity to be used, or green energy consumption is achieved by purchasing green certificates.

At present, some places are exploring new models, such as the virtual power plant model, but they still have to face challenges such as rising technology, policies, and system costs.

In the future, the computing power industry will definitely use more green power to reduce carbon emissions and PUE values, and achieve higher energy efficiency. The collaborative technological innovation of power + computing power + heat can improve the utilization efficiency of renewable energy in the computing power industry and reduce the energy costs of the computing power industry. By exploring the technical paths and models of green and low-carbon, the "computing power +" green and low-carbon ecological system can definitely empower all walks of life, including the high-quality development of renewable energy.

(The author is the director of the Renewable Energy Research Center of Huairou Laboratory and the deputy chief engineer of China Yangtze River Three Gorges Group Co., Ltd.)