Big data center plays crucial role in green development

Zhejiang Provincial Energy Big Data Center has played a key role in Zhejiang province's effort to promote green and low-carbon development as the province takes the lead in the country in exploring a digital governance system for energy conservation and carbon reduction.

In 2023, the center provided enterprises with a total of 299 renewable energy alternatives through applications such as the energy efficiency diagnostic service platform, and the total amount of alternative energy was equivalent to 502 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, equal to 142,100 tons of standard coal, according to data recently disclosed by the State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power.

The energy efficiency diagnosis service platform is one of the energy efficiency improvement products created by the energy big data center. It provides key energy-consuming enterprises with energy-optimizing suggestions such as equipment upgrades, renewable energy substitution and energy management improvements. In 2023, this application provided online energy efficiency diagnosis services to 1,127 companies in Zhejiang province.

Shen Haifeng is head of energy management of one of the companies that have benefitted from the online energy efficiency diagnosis services in the province.

A green transformation is essential for the textile printing and dyeing company, which has 95 percent of its products for exports, according to Shen.

"Most of our international customers have clear requirement for clean energy and renewable raw materials used in product production," Shen said.

To maintain its international competitiveness, the company has since adopted the energy-saving transformation plan provided by the energy efficiency diagnosis service platform of Zhejiang Provincial Energy Big Data Center.

Through equipment upgrades, waste heat and pressure utilization, and renewable energy substitution, the transformation plan has allowed the company to save 255.6 tons of standard coal throughout the year, while saving energy costs of 817,700 yuan ($114,100) per year, according to Shen.

To allow key energy-consuming enterprises to grasp their energy usage in a timely manner, Zhejiang is also relying on the energy big data center to launch the "Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction e-Ledger" application, which effectively supports energy budget management, online monitoring of energy consumption and energy rights trading for enterprises in key areas.

The energy big data center is also dedicated to the construction of a green manufacturing system, creating access to the energy consumption information of all the 4,125 key energy-consuming enterprises in Zhejiang with a capacity of 1,000 tons of standard coal or more. The system is set to drive the collaborative transformation of the industrial chain and supply chain, adding new impetus to the high-quality development of Zhejiang's economy.

As of December 2023, Zhejiang Provincial Energy Big Data Center has accessed a total of 73.1 billion pieces of multi-energy data such as electricity, coal, oil, gas, water and heat, along with 73.87 million corporate carbon accounts and personal carbon points.

Based on this data, Zhejiang has built 65 personalized energy-saving products such as the energy efficiency diagnosis service platform, and formed 150 public services to promote the green and low-carbon development of Zhejiang's entire society.

Fu Yiwen contributed to this story.