Microsoft Green Blog

This Week in Sustainability: How Big Data is Transforming Wind Power

Josh Henretig — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:58:00 GMT

This week, MIT Technology Review profiled the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), an organization working to develop forecasts of wind power. Xcel Energy, the utility with the most wind power in the U.S., is relying on NCAR’s new forecasting methods. Accurate forecasting improves energy efficiency by lessening dependency on backup power plants that waste fuel and creating incentives to shut down baseload power plants that can be expensive to operate. Old forecasting methods had a margin of error between 20 and 50 percent; the new forecasts decrease this error by 30 to 40 percent. To date, Xcel Energy has saved $22 million in fuel alone and has yet to calculate the additional cost savings associated with avoiding purchasing energy on the spot market.

Elsewhere, Treehugger reports that the American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI) is in the process of developing a comprehensive wind-wildlife data management tool that will demonstrate the impacts associated with wind power infrastructure and local wildlife and ecosystems. The Big Data tool, known as the Research Information System (RIS), will provide analysis that’s accurate through large amounts of data collected from thousands of sites. This information is expected to be used by various industries, government and wildlife advocates to better understand wildlife impacts, which could lead to new knowledge from where to site wind farms to how to design a better wind turbine. As advances in technology transform the renewable energy sector, we at Microsoft are pleased to see Big Data and information technology used to help move us toward a more sustainable way of living.

This Week in Sustainability: Renewable Energy and the MIT Media Lab

Josh Henretig — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:45:00 GMT

This week, Scientific American reported on two professors, Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, who first published an article together in 2009 that showed how the entire world could get all necessary energy from wind, water and solar sources by 2030. The two scientists recently updated their plans and ideas to show how communities and regions can begin a wholesale shift toward renewables. Using New York State as an example, they have developed a formula for implementing wind, water and sun as the main power source behind this approach. The mix for New York includes 40 percent offshore wind, 10 percent onshore wind, 10 percent concentrated solar panels, 10 percent photovoltaic cells, 6 percent residential solar, 5 percent geothermal, 5.5 percent hydroelectric, 1 percent tidal energy and 0.5 percent wave energy. Initial models show this new process as reducing power demand by 37 percent due to increased efficiency in the energy sources. Creative methods such as this may aid speedier implementation of renewable energy sources.

Elsewhere this week, the MIT Media Lab was highlighted by the Financial Times. The Media Lab is comprised of 27 research teams that often collaborate across various projects. The teams consist of visiting scientists and graduate students as well as MIT’s brightest undergraduates. Focused on multimedia computing and communications, they create innovative projects to improve the world through technology and science. A few notable projects include CityCar, a car with electrically powered robotic wheels that enable the car to “fold up” when parked, and City Homes, which feature robotic walls, furniture and appliances that can transform the room of small living spaces. The projects extend well beyond car and city to urban agriculture, with an aeroponic approach to urban farming, dubbed SeedPod, where plant roots grow in air bags filled with a fine mist of water and nutrients rather than soil. These ideas, some of which seem straight from the future, are poised to become a reality as we turn to innovation to create a more sustainable way of life. For a company committed to how technology can unleash potential and solve societal challenges, we applaud our fellow technologists who are imagining a greener future.

Italy: Buildings Go Green in the Cloud

Josh Henretig — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

The green building game is changing. A recent McGraw-Hill Construction SmartMarket Report characterized the green building movement as one that has shifted from ‘push’ to ‘pull,’ as companies around the world are recognizing both the environmental and the business value of sustainable, energy efficient buildings. Similar to fuel efficiency ratings for vehicles, rating and disclosing the energy performance of buildings is becoming increasingly common around the world. For that reason, predicting a future building’s energy consumption before breaking ground is important for optimizing building designs and developing these ratings. But predicting a building’s energy consumption requires energy-use simulation on a scale that most architecture firms can’t achieve without a research lab and enormous computing power. At Microsoft, we’re working to change that.

Microsoft Research Connections and the Royal Danish Academy are teaming up with Green Prefab, a startup in northern Italy, to develop a set of next-generation architectural design tools that will use cloud computing to simulate a future building’s energy consumption. Green Prefab’s library of preassembled green building components will be used by architects to access civil engineering services in the cloud, so they can produce energy efficiency reports, conduct in-depth structural analysis and produce photo-realistic images of the building. The startup is working with Microsoft Research Connections to develop some of its first tools in the Windows Azure cloud computing environment, and the Institute of Architectural Technology of the Royal Danish Academy has conducted an experiment with the prototypes that proves the potential of the cloud-based approach.

In the Academy’s experiment, the same architect used both cloud computing and a standard dual-core PC (the traditional approach) to execute energy consumption simulations for the same building. In the end, the cloud-based approached achieved about twice the potential energy savings (33 percent, compared to 17 percent for the traditional approach). Using the cloud also reduced the computing time to a manageable level: the architect was able to run 220,185 energy consumption simulations in the cloud in only three days. By comparison, running the same number using a standard dual-core PC would have taken 122 days.

Microsoft Research’s collaboration with Green Prefab will aid architects in designing buildings that consume substantially less energy than most buildings today, and is one more example of how cloud-based technology can be used to help solve global environmental challenges.

Read more about the ways cloud computing can enhance IT energy efficiency and provide new ways to address environmental challenges on our Microsoft Environment page. And follow us on Twitter (@Microsoft_Green) for more sustainability news.

This Week in Sustainability— Floating Wind Turbines and Solar Power for Soldiers

Josh Henretig — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:05:00 GMT

This week, TreeHugger reported on a group of MIT researchers who developed an offshore wind farm with a twist—floating wind turbines that not only capture wind energy but also store it. When the wind is blowing and there’s not enough demand for electricity on the grid to use the excess power being generated, the power is used to pump seawater into massive concrete spheres under the turbines on the seafloor. When the wind dies down, the seawater can be released from the concrete spheres through a turbine that’s attached to a generator, which is able to generate a form of wind-based energy without a single knot of wind. These types of advancements have the ability to reliably store renewable energy and in doing so tackle one of the biggest technological issues holding back more widespread development of renewable energy. As a result, innovations like this could help make renewable energy investments more viable for the future.

Elsewhere, EarthTechling also discussed how the military can use solar energy as an efficient source of energy for soldiers—and save soldiers in the field the trouble of carrying packs with batteries weighing up to 27 pounds. Rapid Equipping Force (REF), a think tank and tech lab, has been working hard to develop new ways to implement technology to better the lives of the soldiers. Devices used on the frontlines to help save soldier’s lives are often extremely heavy and battery-operated, but by providing soldiers with a 10-watt solar blanket that weighs 3.8 ounces, REF is hoping that soldiers can leave the heavy batteries back at the base—all thanks to advancements in solar cells. While costs remain prohibitive for widespread deployment, the company is hard at work to ensure that innovations in renewable energy will make soldier’s lives better.

Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico Retrofits to Improve Heat Efficiency

Josh Henretig — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:10:00 GMT

Microsoft’s green initiatives span much farther than just our Redmond Campus and can be found across the globe. With facilities spanning across six continents, each location works hard to make its operations more green.

Our office building in Puerto Rico is a perfect example. Led by facilities manager Wilson Toro, Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico has spent the past six months carefully examining how they can improve their operations. Wilson and his team found that replacing the office’s boiler represented the best return on investment. By replacing the basic, oversized boiler with an efficient heat machine, Microsoft Puerto Rico is poised to reduce its emission considerably.

Traditionally, heating boilers are connected to waterlines to provide buildings with hot water and can be used to warm buildings by generating steam or superheat. Electrical heat machines allow for increased efficiency because there is less energy loss inside the machine itself, which requires less energy creation overall. The Puerto Rico team has estimated the transition to a heat machine will lead to a 64 percent reduction of diesel consumption, equaling approximately 121,600 gallons of diesel. CO2 emission reduction is expected to reach 1,145,000 pounds of CO2 per year, which is equivalent to the emissions of approximately 150 cars and projected annual savings will reach nearly $500,000.

Wilson’s passion helped drive the design specifications and helped the project move quickly. His work is a reminder that Microsoft’s commitment to environmental sustainability extends to the more than 110 countries in which we operate offices. By prioritizing upgrades that are both energy and cost efficient, Microsoft facilities worldwide will continue to play a leading role in sustainability as we work to decrease our carbon footprint.

This Week in Sustainability: How Climate Change Impacts Public Health and Business

Josh Henretig — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:08:00 GMT

This week, The Guardian published an article that ties climate change to real health concerns. As the article points out, as a society, we are much more inclined to take preventative action when it directly impacts our own health and well-being. By casting environmental concerns in the terms of public health—something done to great effect in the 1970s during the passage of the Clean Air Act—it’s possible to shift the climate change conversation toward issues that impact people’s daily lives. In addition to pointing out the negative effects climate change can have, it’s also worth noting that eco-friendly practices are often health-friendly as well, such as riding a bicycle as opposed to driving a car. As supporters of climate change continue to engage the public in this conversation, we can expect increased connections between health and the environment. Organizations such as Public Health England and the European Centre for Environment and Human Health have already studied this correlation in detail and are working closely with local businesses to develop collaborative research that could impact policy at a national and international level.

As anyone in the corporate sustainability field will tell you, climate change can impact the bottom line too. As GreenBiz reports, companies can and should take many steps on their own prior to government regulatory action. Severe weather, such as floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, can have a devastating impact on companies from small locally-run businesses to major corporations. Partnership for Resilience and Environmental Preparedness (PREP) released a guide to help manage these climatic impacts. Potential issues include distribution network disruption, worker health and safety hazards, infrastructure damage, among others. Strategic planning is crucial, and in order to plan appropriately, businesses need to have a clear picture of the threats of climate change to ensure that they’re mitigating risk and ensuring that tomorrow’s bottom line doesn’t succumb to rising global temperatures.

Steve Ballmer: How Microsoft Is Doing Well by Doing Good

Josh Henretig — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

This week Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of top U.S. companies, published its 2013 report on how many of the U.S.’s top companies are addressing sustainability challenges. The report includes a letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who outlines how Microsoft is using technology to reduce its carbon footprint and how technology can achieve gains in energy efficiency.

Business Roundtable is a who’s who of American business. The companies represented by the organization comprise more than $7.3 trillion in annual revenue and combined represent nearly one-third of the total value of the U.S. stock market. The key theme in this year’s report—which is entitled “Create, Grow, Sustain: How Companies Are Doing Well by Doing Good”—is that companies are making a difference in their communities, developing products that improve lives and are pursuing socially responsible business practices.

Steve’s letter looks at how Microsoft has committed itself to sustainable business practices, particularly with the implementation of our carbon fee. As he writes in the letter, the carbon fee provides “an economic incentive for our operations in over 100 countries to reduce carbon emissions through efficiency measures and increased use of renewable energy.”

We believe that this approach to reducing a company’s carbon footprint is an example of a socially responsible business practice that can be adopted by other companies across a wide range of business sectors. Steve’s letter also addresses the very important role that IT has to play in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and how research breakthroughs can yield important insights into climate change and biodiversity.

You can read Steve’s letter as well as letters from nearly 150 other business leaders as they talk about efforts each of their companies are taking to improve the quality of life and build a more sustainable world – here.

Earth Day 2013 – Reflecting On Our Commitment to Sustainability

Robert Bernard — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

For the past several years, I’ve used Earth Day as an opportunity to look at Microsoft’s progress on environmental sustainability issues over the past 12 months and where we are headed in the year to come.

The most significant progress to report is around Microsoft’s work to achieve carbon neutrality in our current fiscal year. I’m excited we made the commitment last year and are on track to meet it, but I am even more excited about how we’re meeting it. We are one of the very first companies to put an internal price on carbon emissions, which provides our business and operational groups more awareness and incentives to conserve energy and seek renewable power. The fee enables us to invest in renewable energy credits and certified offset projects to meet our carbon neutrality goal. I attended the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen a few years ago where the nations of the world tried and failed to achieve a global system for addressing greenhouse gas emissions. With that in mind, I’m struck that Microsoft is one of very few organizations in the world today imposing a carbon fee across operations in 100+ countries in a way that makes economic and environmental sense.

Since the implementation of the carbon fee, we have invested over $4 million in renewable energy and carbon offset projects around the world, including wind, hydro and biomass. Projects we’re investing in like the Oddar Meanchey forest protection project in Cambodia works with local communities to halt deforestation and protect an area of 56,000 hectares of tropical forest. In 2012, the EPA awarded Microsoft a Green Power Partner of the Year Award and most recently recognized us as the second largest organizational purchaser of renewable energy in the U.S. (more than 1.9 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, which is enough green power to meet 80 percent of the organization's electricity use). We’ve also kicked off a series of “energy efficiency grants” that will fund teams across Microsoft to implement efficiency programs that will reduce the company’s footprint.

Beyond pioneering an internal carbon fee, we’re driving innovation in a number of ways to enable efficiency in our own operations and for the Information Technology industry as a whole. Microsoft is piloting the first off-the-grid data center that will run on biogas from an adjacent wastewater treatment plant. A smart buildings project on our Redmond campus, which debuted in October 2011, has been expanded to 125 buildings across our Redmond campus and is expected to yield energy savings of up to 10 percent. We have an opportunity to move the needle on corporate sustainability practices at many levels due to our size. Our Redmond Campus feeds 30,000+ people each day in its cafes and kitchens and has made important progress on waste reduction - diverting 99 percent of waste-stream in the cafés to recycling or compost.

We’re building new energy-saving features into our core products including our cloud services. As one example, new auto scaling capabilities on Windows Azure (the Windows Azure Auto Scaling Block and the recently acquired MetricsHub product) enable developers to easily scale and throttle their applications’ use of resources, saving money and reducing the environmental footprint along the way. Related to this, we’re working with The Green Grid to create guidance on the important role of developers have on improving IT resource efficiency. We are also working with government agencies, environmental groups, and large employers in countries like the United Kingdom on “Work from Anywhere” days to promote travel reduction from telework solutions like Skype, Office 365 and Lync.

I’m also energized and inspired by the work on key environmental issues done by my colleagues in Microsoft Research. Over the past year some of our top computer scientists collaborated with the United Nations Environment Programme to build a computer model that will model all the terrestrial and marine ecosystems on earth. Research like this has the potential to dramatically enhance our understanding of the environment, which can support future efforts to improve conservation policies around the globe. It’s an example of how technology can help bring about a more sustainable future—and often in unexpected ways.

At Microsoft we strive to empower everyone at the company to take into account how technology can address challenges of sustainability. Some other stories that teams across Microsoft are sharing this Earth Day include:

Today, MSR released a video featuring LiveANDES, a new tool to enable researchers and citizen scientists to map the distribution of endangered wildlife. Chile contains an important cross-section of the world’s flora and fauna and is home to many endangered species. LiveANDES will help scientists around the world keep the International Union of Nature Conservation red list for endangered species accurate, complete, and up-to-date.
Microsoft Student is promoting a theme week for Earth Day and will be sharing a mix of their own and others’ content on their Facebook and Twitter pages, including a blog post today on the Microsoft Student blog on five past environmentally-themed Imagine Cup finalist games.
Microsoft Data Centers published a blog post late last week on the 10 Earth-Friendly Facts about Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure. Microsoft recognizes the effects of its growing infrastructure footprint, and as a result, strives to continue to build a cloud infrastructure which allows customers to do more with less servers, energy, and environmental impact. The Microsoft Data Centers website has more information on how Microsoft is making its data centers more efficient.

We’ve come a long way since I first stepped into the role of chief environmental strategist five years ago and Microsoft created its first environmental sustainability team. While we still have progress to make in reducing our environmental footprint and realizing the potential of technology to address environmental challenges, I’m pleased to say that we are well on our way to making environmental sustainability a core value at Microsoft. We’re more confident than ever about the role of IT to address climate change and other important environmental challenges. Indeed, the recent SMARTer 2020 report found use of IT-enabled solutions can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 16.5 percent, generating $1.9 trillion in energy and fuel savings while creating 29.5 million jobs by 2020.

We invite you to join us in our journey here on the Microsoft Green Blog or on Facebook or Twitter. Look for us to share what we’re learning about the intersection of technology and the environment as we continue down the path toward greater sustainability.

Rob Bernard

Chief Environmental Strategist

Microsoft Corporation

This Week in Sustainability—Copenhagen’s Carbon Neutrality Plan

Josh Henretig — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:00:00 GMT

As Clean Technica reports, Copenhagen is placing tremendous focus on cycling as an alternative for cars in and around the city and has created “bicycle superhighways.” Currently, 36 percent of all trips taken to work or school are via bike, and at peak travel times, more than 20,000 cyclists enter the city every day. The capital’s goal is for 75 percent of all trips to be via bike by 2025. The city’s Metro is also going through an overhaul as the new “City Circle Line” would be within 650 yards from 85 percent of the city’s population.

An interesting point to note in the Copenhagen case study is the active participation of many residents. Copenhagen residents are putting their own money into low-carbon efforts, and as a result, many projects are moving forward at a rapid rate. Direct city investment is projected at $472 million, but with private funds factored in, total investments could reach as high as $4.78 billion. As Mayor Jensen explains, “We can see also that we can create a lot of new jobs with that huge investment. Copenhagen can be a green laboratory for developing and testing new green solutions.”

In the U.S., both businesses and institutions are implementing carbon neutrality programs of their own. The Portland Press Herald in Portland, Maine, wrote on Maine’s Colby College, which recently announced it is the fourth college in the country to become 100 percent carbon neutral. The first college to achieve this was The College of the Atlantic, also in Maine. GreenBiz wrote about how a PNC Bank branch in Fort Lauderdale, Florida is selling excess power to Florida Power & Light Company through a net metering program. There’s no doubt that from local governments to neighborhood businesses, carbon neutrality commitments are on the rise.

EPA Names Microsoft Leading Green Energy Purchaser

Josh Henretig — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:10:00 GMT

For the second consecutive year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named Microsoft to its Green Power Partnership Top 50 List—and this year our ranking increased to second on the Top 50 List.

According to the EPA, Microsoft is purchasing nearly 1.9 billion kWh of green power, which is enough energy to meet 80 percent of Microsoft’s electricity use in the U.S. That’s an increase of nearly 70 percent from last year, when Microsoft used 1.1 billion kWh of green energy. Our annual purchase of green power is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions of nearly 285,000 passenger vehicles per year or the CO₂ emissions from the electricity use of more than 204,000 average American homes annually. In addition to our spot on the National Top 50 list, we also appear as number 2 on the Top 20 Tech & Telecom list. Our green energy use also qualifies Microsoft for EPA’s Green Power Leadership Club, a distinction given to organizations that have significantly exceeded EPA’s minimum purchase requirements.

While Microsoft has been a consistent purchaser of renewable energy for years, last year’s commitment to carbon neutrality and the creation of an internal carbon fee were both key milestones toward increasing our purchase of renewable energy and carbon offsets. We’re honored to have made the EPA’s list for the second consecutive year and applaud other organizations that are making strides to invest in the nation’s green power market.