Carbon Neutral

KDDI's Approach (Carbon Neutral)

Greenhouse gas emissions, which are considered a cause of global warming, are increasing year by year, and reducing them is now a social issue shared by all humankind.
The utilization of ICTs enhances the efficiency of business activities, including production and consumption, and is expected to contribute to the reduction of customers' CO2 emissions. As ICTs expand, however, we may face a greater environmental impact from data centers and base stations, which in turn will generate demand for the development and implementation of energy-saving facilities and equipment.
We at KDDI offer new ICT services to contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions to realize carbon neutral.

Green Supported by ICTs

Reducing Power Consumption and Undertaking Disaster Measure Initiatives at Base Stations

The Environmental Eco Label is granted to KDDI ICT services that contribute to reducing the environmental impact of customers and society (reducing CO2 emissions).

Environmental Eco Label services Content
KDDI Cloud Platform Service KDDI operates and maintains this platform, enabling customers to increase or decrease their server capacity remotely from their own offices, without having to travel to the data center where the servers are located.
Furthermore, customers can reduce the amount of CO2 emissions they are responsible for by transferring the servers that they install, operate and maintain themselves (on-premises environment) to the KDDI Cloud Platform Service. With this service, server operations are performed with an economy of scale unique to a telecommunications operator, enabling an approximately 38% reduction in CO2 emissions per server per year in comparison to when customers operate their servers themselves.
Telehouse Data Center Services These data centers have high power supply capacity, highly efficient and reliable power generation equipment, energy-efficient air conditioning equipment, LED lighting, outdoor lights that use wind and solar power and other advanced, energy-efficient equipment.
KDDI IoT Communication Service LPWA This telecommunications service uses LPWA technology, which utilizes KDDI's 4G LTE network. This technology reduces the power consumed by telecommunication devices and provides telecommunications coverage over a wider area.
au Denki RE100 Menu and Non-Carbon Menu Under the RE100 Menu, we supply electricity that meets RE100 criteria by supplying electricity derived from renewable energy sources (including electricity under Feed-in Tariff scheme) and offsetting carbon through the purchase of J-Credit (derived from renewable energy).
Under the Non-Carbon Menu, we supply electricity with zero CO2 emissions derived from the electricity purchase by utilizing J-credit scheme.

Green of ICTs

Electricity consumed at the au mobile phone base stations accounts for 60% of the total volume consumed by KDDI, so reducing electricity consumption at base stations is one of our topmost priorities to tackle. Also, 77% of the base stations that ceased to operate in the aftermath of 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami did so because of power outages, which turned out to be a pressing issue to be addressed in disaster preparedness measures.
In regard to these issues, we promote implementing tribrid base stations [1] and extending the life of base station batteries to 24 hours.

  1. [1]Base stations that utilize tribrid electric power control technology to efficiently supply three kinds of electric power depending on time and weather: ordinary commercial power, power generated by solar panels and "midnight" (off-peak) power saved in storage batteries.
Numbers as of the end of March 2022
Tribrid base stations 100 stations in Japan
Implementation of 24 hour-life base station batteries Around 2,200 stations in Japan

Demonstration Experiment to Reduce Power Consumption at Base Stations

The au mobile phone base stations have reduced power consumption by up to 50% by utilizing the AI technology capable of stopping and starting the transmitting of radio waves according to the usage status (AI-based control technology for base stations). In addition, we have started a proof of concept (PoC) in order to reduce power consumption by at least 70% by using the liquid cooling base station solution with liquid refrigerant that has improved cooling efficiency compared to conventional air cooling methods.

Portable Batteries

Since fiscal 2013, we have implemented portable batteries with reduced environmental impact at 12 maintenance bases throughout Japan as a substitute for the power supply vehicles used in the past to power mobile phone base stations during electricity outages.

Portable Battery Trial Test Results [2]

Power supply vehicles 8.2 litre of fuel consumed per time CO2 emissions: 21.5kg
Portable Batteries 10 kWh of power consumed per time CO2 emissions: 4.1kg
(FY2012 Results)

A reduction of 17.4kg of CO2 emissions each time

  1. [2]With an approximately 10-hour base station power outage and 1 kW wireless device power consumptio

Renewable Energy (Internal use)

In order to promote energy conservation and CO2 emissions reduction, we use natural energy sources, including solar power, at several large scale communication stations and tribrid base stations. At nine of our mobile phone base stations in Japan, almost all electric power comes from natural energy sources. The amount of natural energy produced by each tribrid base station is approximately 4.2 kWh per day [3], accounting for about 18% of the power consumed at each base. We expect further reduction [3] of CO2 emissions by 20 to 30% with the use of midnight power.

  1. [3]Estimated average energy production value by six solar batteries installed in test stations during clear skies. Includes actual values measured by KDDI.

Renewable Energy Business

We launched solar power generation business in November 2013 with the aim of contributing to reduction of CO2 emissions. We constructed solar power generation facilities on part of company-owned land in seven facilities of four locations around Japan and sell the power to electric power companies based on the Feed-in Tariff Scheme for Renewable Energy.

Unit: MWh
FY2017 FY2018 FY2019 FY2020 FY2021
Total generated energy (sold) 18,137 17,998 17,406 17,566 17,664

Since September 1, 2021, in "au Denki" electricity supply service, KDDI has offered the "eco Plan." The practical renewable energy rate of this electricity supply plan is 100%, achieving net-zero CO2 emissions. The rate of renewable energy of our procured electricity has achieved 100% by supplying electricity together with non-fossil fuel energy certificates that have environmental value of not emitting CO2, such as solar and wind power. The plan has introduced a system that 2% of electricity charges will be donated to conservation efforts for the global environment, which allows KDDI to work together with customers to contribute to achieving a carbon-neutral society. The subsidiary, ENERES Co., Ltd. offers eco-friendly services, such as "RE100 Menu" that supplies electricity generated only from renewable energy sources that meets the RE100 criteria and "Non-Carbon Menu" that supplies electricity without any adjusted emission coefficients, and thus has contributed to customers' initiatives to mitigate global warming through its business.

KDDI's effort to conserve environment

As the KDDI Group benefits greatly from the natural environment, we believe it is important to promote activities to address environmental issues. In order to pass on our irreplaceable earth to the next generation, KDDI Group employees are engaged in various activities to preserve the global environment in cooperation with various stakeholders, including local residents, governments, universities, NGOs and NPOs.

Environment