In 2008, IBM purchased 450 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, which represented 8.6 percent of the company's 2008 global electricity usage. This represents a CO2 emissions avoidance of 176,000 metric tons.
IBM's energy conservation efforts and its procurement of renewable energy in 2008 avoided the emissions of more than 391,000 metric tons of CO2. In addition to procuring renewable energy for its own use, IBM is working to further the availability and affordability of renewable energy by investing in IT-related research and development.
- Advancing solar technology: IBM is exploring four main areas of photovoltaic research: using current technologies to develop cheaper and more efficient silicon solar cells; developing new thin film photovoltaic devices; pioneering concentrator photovoltaic technology to harness the sun's power more efficiently and cost effectively; and researching future generation photovoltaic architectures based upon structures such as semiconductor quantum dots and nanowires.
- Developing smart grids: IBM is developing and offering solutions to help utilities add a layer of digital intelligence to their grids and thus automate, monitor and control the two-way flow of energy across operations -- from power plant to plug. Smart grids can also incorporate new sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar power and interact locally with distributed power sources or plug-in electric vehicles.
- Repurposing scrap silicon wafers:Solar energy technology is affected by the availability of silicon. IBM has developed a polish process that enables the repurposing of scrap silicon "wafers" -- the base material used for chips in everything from computers to consumer electronics -- from its semiconductor manufacturing operations for use in solar panels. The new process is helping to reduce the estimated three million silicon wafers discarded each year across the computer industry, while also providing new supplies of raw materials to the solar energy industry.