Microsoft is utilizing geoexchange fields for its carbon negative ambitions
Microsoft’s solution can be found 550 feet deep in the dirt.
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What you need to know
Microsoft’s not playing around when it comes to sustainability initiatives. The company has pledged to gocarbon negative by 2030, and such a goal has necessitated changes in operations from every corner of the tech giant. Be it bygiving servers bathsor drilling hundreds of geowells into the earth, sustainable initiatives are here to stay.
One big plan on the docket for Microsoft is to utilize the earth’s naturally cooler sub-surface temps to ensure its campus maintains a healthy temperature (viaFast Company). This isn’t the same proposition as provided by air conditioners and gas-burning furnaces, since it’s clean energy. It’s also how Redmond is going to keep cool, thanks to the 875 geowells spread across 2.5 acres, all of which will be part of Microsoft’s Thermal Energy Center’s elaborate closed-loop system. The majority of the system will run on renewable electricity, per Microsoft’sreport on the project.
The wells will go 550 feet underground and “compose one of the largest ‘geoexchange’ fields in the United States to harness the earth’s thermal energy,” according to Microsoft. Since heating and cooling power is linked directly to how many wells Microsoft drills, it arrived at the number 875 very carefully, weighing electricity needed versus what heat and cooling would be supplied.
Microsoft’s not just bettering itself with efforts such as these. There have been plenty of examples of the company extending its knowledge of sustainability initiatives to help partners and peers, such as with itsMicrosoft Cloud for Sustainability package, which gives corporations the tools they need to track environmental impact and form plans of action around the insights provided to them.
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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.
