One of the major activities of the Nandu Think Tank Week, "2023 Responsible China · The "ESG Innovation and Development Forum" was held in Shanghai on the afternoon of December 21. The theme of this forum is "Insight Value · With the theme of "Carbon Road Sustainable Development", the list of "2023 ESG Sustainable Development Innovation Pioneer Enterprises" was announced. Among them, Baidu's related green case won the "2023 ESG Sustainable Development Innovation Pioneer Enterprise Case".
Among the 20 leading Internet companies previously surveyed by the reporter from Nandu, a total of 11 companies have made carbon neutrality commitments, and Baidu has also promised to achieve the carbon neutrality goal at the group's operational level by 2030. Taking 2020 as the base year, Baidu plans to build a scientific path to achieve the 2030 carbon neutrality goal in six aspects: data centers, office buildings, carbon offsets, intelligent transportation, intelligent cloud, and supply chain, based on existing green practices and with reference to Scope 1 and 2 types of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. In this year's application case, Baidu has made many new explorations in the construction of green data centers, AI-driven green smart office, and green operation to explore scientific carbon reduction paths and promote the green transformation of the industry.
In-depth site selection, construction, and operation stages to build a green data center
Since 2023, generative AI has ushered in leapfrog development, driving the demand for computing power to skyrocket, and the energy consumption problem of data centers has become more and more prominent. Among the 20 leading Internet companies surveyed by Nandu, more than half of them regard the construction of green data centers as an important topic. Internet companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, NetEase, Kuaishou, and Century Huatong have increased the construction of green data centers.
According to public reports, since 2010, Baidu has been preparing to build its green data center, and continues to optimize the energy structure and increase the proportion of clean energy use. The relevant person in charge of Baidu told the reporter that the construction of a green data center is based on many considerations. "From the perspective of the enterprise, we are in order to save energy and improve efficiency, reduce operating expenses, reduce costs and increase efficiency; from the perspective of the industry, we are leading the trend of technological development in the industry through internal technological innovation, and play a role in demonstration and guidance; at the same time, we also want to assume more social responsibilities, reduce corporate carbon consumption, and contribute to the national double carbon cause." ”
Baidu has integrated green concepts into every stage of the site, construction and operation of green centers: in the site selection and planning stage of data centers, Baidu prioritizes areas with abundant renewable energy such as solar and wind energy, in the construction stage, it makes full use of roof space to build photovoltaic power stations to improve the use of solar energy, and in the operation stage, Baidu actively participates in green power trading. According to the data, Baidu participated in Beijing's green power trading in 2022, with a transaction volume of 5,080MWh. In addition, according to Baidu's plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, Baidu said that the data center will gradually change the energy use structure, and eventually achieve the goal of using 100% renewable energy to provide customers with 100% clean cloud computing services.
The investment in green concepts at every stage has also yielded results, which are reflected in the PUE value of the energy efficiency index of the data center. According to the data, the average PUE of Baidu's energy efficiency index in 2022 is 1.16, of which the average annual PUE of Baidu Cloud Computing (Yangquan) Center 1# module is 1.08 (the closer the PUE is to 1, the better the energy efficiency level).
While reducing the energy consumption of data centers, Baidu is also actively exploring water-saving technologies such as sewage recycling and reuse technology and electromagnetic wave water treatment technology, and taking multiple measures to reduce water consumption. In 2022, the average annual WUE (water utilization rate) of a single module in Baidu Dingxing Data Center will be as low as 0.92.
Innovate data center green technology from lithium batteries and cooling systems
It is worth mentioning that the Yangquan data center, which has repeatedly appeared in Baidu's green operation, has always adhered to the concept of "the data center is a whole, and energy conservation starts from the source". According to public information, since the first phase of the project was put into operation in 2014, Baidu Cloud Computing (Yangquan) Center has been aiming to build a green, low-carbon, energy-saving and environmentally friendly cloud computing data center, and has innovatively applied a number of green energy-saving technologies in terms of software architecture, IT equipment and infrastructure.
In Baidu's latest ESG report, for self-built data centers, Baidu has reduced carbon emissions from three perspectives: lithium batteries, refrigeration systems, and computing power use, and a variety of green innovative energy-saving technologies have been applied to Baidu's Yangquan data center.
Lithium batteries continue to power data centers, but they also generate significant carbon emissions. In order to reduce carbon emissions and build a green data center, Baidu uses lithium batteries to reduce carbon emissions from two aspects in self-built data centers, one is to adopt distributed lithium battery technology, and use built-in lithium battery cabinets in the data center to completely remove UPS and lead-acid battery configurations, saving more than 25% of computer room space and power supply efficiency of up to 99.5%; Low maintenance cost. In 2022, the system will realize the function of peak shaving and valley filling of energy storage on the user side. Baidu has deployed more than 80 systems in the Yangquan data center, saving 60% of the primary battery footprint.
In addition, in terms of cooling in data centers, Baidu uses liquid cooling systems, "glacier" phase change cooling systems, and overhead cooling units. Baidu's liquid cooling system adopts a modular design, which can improve space utilization by 15%, and at the same time, it integrates AI intelligent heat dissipation control algorithm to improve energy efficiency by 50%. In 2022, Baidu Yangquan Data Center will implement more than 100 cold-plate liquid-cooled cabinets, and pilot the immersion liquid-cooled cooling system.
It is worth mentioning the "glacier" phase change cooling system, which is able to refrigerate the data center. For the first time, the "Glacier" phase change cooling system introduces the oil-free concept into the refrigeration circulation system, using air pumps, liquid pumps, evaporative condensers and parallel terminals as the hardware basis, and AI intelligent control to flexibly meet the cooling needs of the data center. In 2022, Baidu's Yangquan data center will increase its computing power by 20% and reduce carbon emissions by 60% through the large-scale implementation of the "glacier" phase change cooling system.
Baidu has also set up an overhead cooling unit, which acts on the end of the self-developed air conditioner, relying on air convection to circulate hot and cold air to save energy consumption at the end of the air conditioner. According to the data, this technology allows the single-module air conditioning system of Baidu Yangquan Data Center to save more than 2 million kWh of electricity per year.
The relevant person in charge of Baidu revealed that in multiple cooling systems, the air-cooled cooling technology of glacier and OCU overhead cooling units is currently applied in a large proportion, but with the failure of Moore's law, liquid cooling technology will gradually expand the application proportion.
It is understood that Baidu will standardize the innovative technology of its self-built data center and export it to the partner of the rented data center, and build it in accordance with Baidu's innovative technology to achieve further energy conservation and emission reduction.
AI promotes green and intelligent office, cutting down 353 20-year-old trees a year
In order to guide all employees to participate in green office and implement the concept of carbon reduction into the corporate culture, Baidu has also carried out energy-saving renovation in the operation and maintenance of office areas, elevators, and energy use.
Baidu has carried out the operation and maintenance transformation of the office area, covering the lighting system, boiler energy-saving automatic control, elevator renovation and refrigeration unit transformation. It is understood that in 2022, Baidu has completed the renovation of the lighting system of Baidu Building and Baidu Science and Technology Park, which is estimated to save 4.8 million kWh of electricity per year, and Baidu has completed the energy-saving automatic control transformation of the boiler in Baidu Science and Technology Park, adding climate compensation control, circulating pump frequency conversion control and upper machine group control, etc., which is estimated to reduce the use of natural gas by about 90,000 cubic meters per year.
In terms of elevator renovation, Baidu has renovated 33 elevators in Baidu Building, Baidu Science and Technology Park and Penghuan Building, which is estimated to save 250,000 kWh of electricity per year, while Baidu Building has repaired 3 refrigeration units to improve equipment operation efficiency, reducing the ice storage time of the ice pond by about 13% compared with the same period in 2021.
The adoption of new energy is also one of Baidu's initiatives to promote energy conservation. According to the data, the roofs of Baidu Building and Penghuan Building adopt distributed photovoltaic power generation systems, with an installed capacity of 964.44kWp, and a total of 602,900 kWh of electricity will be generated in 2022. The new photovoltaic power generation system in Baidu Science and Technology Park has a total designed installed capacity of about 1,265kWp and an estimated annual power generation capacity of about 1.67 million kWh. When the solar photovoltaic power generation systems of Baidu Tower, Penghuan Building and Baidu Science and Technology Park are put into operation, it is estimated that about 2.6 million kWh of clean electricity will be provided for administrative offices throughout the year. The solar water heating system at Baidu Science Park can reduce boiler gas consumption by about 34,000 cubic meters throughout the year.
In addition, Baidu adheres to the recycling management of waste and office assets and equipment. Baidu implements refined management of garbage and pays attention to cultivating employees' garbage sorting Xi. On the basis of requiring employees to sort garbage, the sorted garbage is also handed over to a professional company for removal. At the same time, Baidu records and monitors the amount of waste generated on a daily basis. For scrapped computers and other office equipment, Baidu entrusts companies with disposal qualifications to recycle and sell scrapped electronic equipment, and harmlessly dispose of the parts that have no use value, processing about 8,000 units of equipment per year.
In order to strengthen the advocacy of green awareness and practice the concept of green office, Baidu also launched the "520, low-carbon line" activity, calling on employees to reduce the use of disposable tableware, form a green lifestyle, and reduce unnecessary waste of resources. In addition, Baidu uses smart office products to achieve paperless and low-energy office. Baidu said that it will give Baidu's AI technology to promote the large-scale occurrence of innovation driven by "innovation pipeline = AI × knowledge management", develop smart office products, and create an intelligent work platform. In terms of details, Baidu Ruliu, one of the representative products of the "innovation assembly line" concept, realizes paperless and low-energy office by optimizing the flow and application of data in multiple scenarios such as finance, personnel, meetings, and park management. It is estimated that in 2022, the application of the "innovation assembly line" will save 1.06 million pieces of paper, which is equivalent to 353 20-year-old trees, and in terms of electricity, only a single smart conference hardware can save 1.51 million kWh of electricity throughout the year.
Written by: Nandu reporter Lin Wenqi