Microsoft and Amazon named and shamed in green datacentres report

The major tech firms yet to make their facilities run completely on renewable energy unveiled

Apple and Google are the only two hyperscalers to run their datacentres entirely on renewable energy, according to IHS Markit.

Research conducted by the analyst shows that all of the power produced to run Apple and Google's datacentres come from renewable sources, but Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are lagging behind.

Apple's datacentres have been running completely on green power sources since 2013, IHS Markit said, with Google hitting the same standard last year. Prior to 2017 just 50 per cent of Google's energy came from renewable sources.

Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are not fairing so well. The trio all hit the 50 per cent mark last year - Facebook up from 25 per cent in 2016, Microsoft up from 45 per cent, and Amazon up from 40 per cent.

Globally IHS Markit said that, while existing datacentres are less likely to move to entirely green energy, more and more new datacentres will be designed to use renewable energy.

"Both internal and external forces motivate datacentre operators to seek renewable energy sources," the analyst said.

"Internally, they are driven by potential energy cost savings or internal sustainability policies. Externally, they are motivated by their customers' desires for companies to have environmentally friendly practices or tax incentives or subsidies from governments.

"The increased interest in renewable energy onsite generation of renewable energy is likely to become a bigger criteria for datacentre design.

"The location of the datacentre will increase in importance, because the biggest hurdle to having local renewable energy is whether or not facility is located in an ideal climate to generate renewable energy."

According to IHS Markit between two and three per cent of all electricity consumed in developed countries can be attributed to the running of datacentres.

It added that as technology advances it will become easier to reduce the power supply needed to run datacentres, therefore make it easier to run them solely from renewable power.