Role of Carbon Capture and Storage in Decarbonizing Asia-Pacific Data Centers

Abstract Analysis of data in the public domain shows that the power capacity of Asia-Pacific (APAC) data centers (DCs) will grow from 16 GW in 2025 to 70 GW in 2030, a 4.4-fold increase. Between 2025 and 2030, APAC economies with the highest growth rate in DC power capacity will be India, Japan, Australia, China, and South Korea. Using the announced power source of future DCs and the energy mix of APAC’s national grids, this study estimates that the CO2 emitted by fossil fuel power plants supplying electricity to DCs (DC-emitted CO2) will grow from 46 Mtpa in 2025 to 177 Mtpa in 2030, a 3.8-fold increase. By 2030, six APAC economies will have DC power capacity exceeding 10% of their national grid capacity. They will be Bhutan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Japan. These economies need to upgrade their national grid to support their DC power growth. The relatively small share of nuclear power and non-hydro renewable energies in national electricity generation in APAC economies will mean that the majority of DCs in APAC will be powered by fossil fuel power plants. Analysis shows that APAC economies of India, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam will rely heavily on coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) to power their DCs, whereas Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, and New Zealand will rely heavily on natural gas-fired power plants (GFPPs). By 2030, there will be 25 APAC locations with DC-emitted CO2 exceeding 1 Mtpa. A CO2 source-sink mapping exercise shows that 16 of these locations have nearby saline aquifers that can permanently store more than 100 years of DC-emitted CO2, corresponding to 76% of total DC-emitted CO2. With further characterization of APAC saline aquifers, more DC-emitted CO2 may be mitigated by carbon capture and storage (CCS). Furthermore, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore suffer from low energy self-sufficiency (≤20%), and their DCs are vulnerable to disruption of energy imports. Policies to mitigate this need to be in place.