Power Use in the Data Center: Who Can Make the “Green” Claim?
In this Data Center Frontier article “Power Use in the Data Center: Who Can Make the ‘Green’ Claim?”, DataBank’s Senior Director of Sustainability Jenny Gerson breaks down the complexities around renewable energy claims in the data center sector. The piece explains that while companies increasingly seek to reduce environmental impact and report progress toward climate goals, confusion remains over what constitutes renewable power and who is entitled to claim its use. Once electricity enters the grid, all electrons mix regardless of source, making it impossible to identify renewable energy physically used by a specific customer.
Because of this, the legal right to claim renewable energy benefits lies not in the physical electrons but in Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), which represent the environmental attributes of renewable generation. Only organizations that own and retire RECs can claim associated emissions reductions. Data center customers may state that their equipment resides in a facility powered by renewables, but they cannot claim direct reduction of their emissions unless they hold the corresponding RECs. While this framework can seem counterintuitive, purchasing RECs still drives market demand for renewables and helps reduce Scope 2 emissions.
