China Data Centers and Renewable Energy, an Interview with Ye Ruiqi

Environment China

China's data centers currently consume over 2% of China's electricity production and that share is growing quickly. In today's episode, we sit down with Greenpeace East Asia's Ye Ruiqi to discuss how some companies are turning to renewable energy to meet the growing need for clean energy to power data centers.

A link to the report Powering the Cloud: How China's Internet Industry Can Shift to Renewable Energy, from September 2019, can be found here: https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/24112/electricity-consumption-from-chinas-internet-industry-to-increase-by-two-thirds-by-2023-greenpeace/

Ruiqi is a climate and energy campaigner from Greenpeace East Asia, and covers topics like China’s renewable energy development, power market reform, and IT sector sustainability. Before joining Greenpeace, Ruiqi worked as a grassroots organizer at the US Public Interest Network after graduated from University of California Santa Barbara.

In the episode, we reference Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). You can find an explanation of different types of PPAs (physical and virtual) from the Rocky Mountain Institute here: Physical PPA https://rmi.org/insight/virtual-power-purchase-agreement/

Ruiqi also mentions the career of Li Junfeng. An older bio can be found here ( http://www.thejei.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/205-697-1-PB.pdf ), but we note that Li is now retired from the positions mentioned here, though he is still very active on issues of renewable energy and climate change policy.