Major European Energy Company Vattenfall Becomes Latest Member of the ​Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance

Germany/Hamburg, August 2020: Swedish energy supplier Vattenfall has signed up to the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance, whose mission is to move the global digital sector towards zero-emissions.

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, the not-for-profit organization 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."

Vattenfall, 100 percent owned by the Swedish state, is one of Europe's largest producers and retailers of electricity and heat. Their primary markets are Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Finland.

As data centers play a more significant and influential role in the energy system, the SDIA wants all stakeholders to actively develop holistic initiatives to harness and integrate the centers' energy consumption through better planning, smarter optimization and greater flexibility to the power grid.

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, Siur Jensen, Vice President of Vattenfall 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 industry, 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."

Note to Editors:

About SDIA: The Alliance, which presently has more than 20 members, was established to drive collaboration across industries to enable a thriving digital ecosystem without negative impacts on the environment through competitive and sustainable digital infrastructure.

About Vattenfall: Vattenfall is a leading European energy company, which for more than 100 years has electrified industries, supplied energy to people’s homes and modernised our way of living through innovation and cooperation. We now want to make fossil-free living possible within one generation. That's why we are driving the transition to a sustainable energy system through initiatives in renewable production and climate smart energy solutions for our customers. We employ approximately 20,000 people and have operations mainly in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Finland. Vattenfall is owned by the Swedish state.