Vattenfall becomes member of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance

Founded in late-2019, the SDIA is a non-profit entity that uniquely aligns energy suppliers, governments and industry to a mission of decarbonizing the global digital economy.

While drawing attention to the rise of global data centers, whose carbon emissions rival that of the aviation industry, SDIA seeks to drive collaboration across the value chain to promote a future digital infrastructure with minimal environmental impact.

The addition of Vattenfall to the Alliance will seek to further SDIA's goal of greater intra-industry collaboration towards an ecologically and economically sustainable digital world.

"We welcome Vattenfall not only as a new member to the Alliance, but also as one of the first energy companies to put the decarbonization of the digital infrastructure sector on their agenda," commented Max Schulze, SDIA's Chairman of the Board. "Data centers are major energy consumers and energy utilities, such as Vattenfall, bring the knowledge and experience to integrate them effectively as part of the future energy system."

Max Schulze explained that the residual heat from data centers could become a significant heat source for households and light industries. He added: "Facilities now frequently reach capacities of 20 MW and more, so there is an enormous potential still untapped for ecological and economic improvements. "For example, energy utilities can utilize waste heat from data centers or increase workloads when there is a lot of renewable electricity in the power grid. The SDIA wants to create ​net-positive digital infrastructure which aligns with Vattenfalls mission to enable fossil-free living within one generation."

Welcoming the opportunity to become a member of SDIA, Sjur Jensen, Vice President within Vattenfall Business Area Markets, said: "It also represents an important step for us to offer our expertise and collaboration towards achieving a more sustainable digital infrastructure sector."

He added: "We see that data centers are growing and digital infrastructure is increasing in importance. As with other large-scale industries, there is the potential for a deeper integration, be it residual heat, flexibility, power-purchase agreements or other synergies. With our support in the SDIA and our pilot facility near Stockholm, we want to facilitate such an integration along the entire value chain."

Read the SDIA press release here: www.sdialliance.org 

Read more about how Vattenfall works with sustainability in all operations