Describes the process for Universities and NRENs to fund network and computing infrastructure through Green Bond or Revolving Door Funds

1. Developing a Green Bond Fund
strategy to fund university & NREN
infrastructure and networks
October 2016
Bill St. Arnaud
Bill.st.arnaud@gmail.com

2. Executive Summary
• Green Bond Funds are becoming an increasing popular way to pay for new
university infrastructure and research
• Green Bond Funds are loans from financial institutions, funding councils or
university endowments that are paid back through energy savings in new
building design, use of renewable power, etc
• ICT consumes 20-40% of electrical power at R&E institutions. Low hanging
fruit in terms of cost savings through reduction of energy consumption
• NRENs role is to provide network solutions to reduce university ICT energy
consumption and CO2 emissions and aggregate multiple projects into a single
bond offering
• Research into new Internet and Energy network architectures will also be
required
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3. Green Bond Funds
• Fixed-term investments designed to create steady, if unspectacular, returns by lending money
to sustainable energy or infrastructure projects.
• Green bond market is exploding. In 2014 alone, more than $35-billion (U.S.) worth of bonds
specifically designated as “green” were sold, up from $11-billion in 2013. The 2015 estimate
is $100-billion.
– http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/green-bond-market-is-exploding-but-limited-to-individual-
investors/article22221476/
• Green bonds provide investors with a way to earn tax-exempt income and gain the
satisfaction of knowing the proceeds of their investment will be used in a positive manner.
• Several universities have already issued Green Bond Funds for new buildings and research
infrastructure e.g. Indiana, Cincinnati, etc
• Several funding councils and endowments are looking at Green Bond Funds as a vehicle to
fund networks and education infrastructure e.g. University Presidents Climate Commitment
3

4. How to Raise Trillions for Green
Investments
• NYTimes
– http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/opinion/how-to-raise-trillions-for-green-
investments.html
• China has declared green finance a “strategic imperative.”
• China recently began an initiative to raise private capital through the sale of green bonds.
After just six months, these bonds now account for 40 percent of the global market. Recent
guidelines issued by the government outline an ambitious road map for creating green
lending, environmental stress tests, benchmarks to ensure credibility of green investments,
disclosure requirements and innovative public private partnerships.
• NRENs and universities need to start to develop strategic plans on how to use Green Bond or
Revolving Door Funds to pay for network and computing infrastructure
• Full implementation Guidebook for universities to implement Green Revolving Fund
– http://greenbillion.org/resources/
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5. Green Bonds for Universities
• To issue a Green Bond university must articulate business case for energy savings that will
enable payback of bond
• ICT is low hanging fruit in terms of energy savings and using solar power and provides easiest
business case for acquiring Green Bond
• CSA has developed Green IT protocol to allow networks and data centers to qualify for Green
Bonds http://shop.csa.ca/en/canada/climate-change/ict-protocol-version-
1/invt/27033222012
• Green Bond or Green Revolving Funds can be issued by financial institutions, endowment
funds and/or funding councils
• Example: The University Billion Dollar Green Challenge
– http://greenbillion.org/the-challenge/
• Complete how to guide book for universities
– http://greenbillion.org/resources/
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6. Complete Implementation Guidebook
• Combines the expertise of energy professionals and college
administrators from dozens of institutions to establish best
practices for designing and managing green revolving funds
(GRFs).
• The resource is a co-publication of the Sustainable
Endowments Institute (SEI) and the Association for the
Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE),
and was developed with the consulting firm ICF International.
• The full version of the guide provides both a broad overview
of the green revolving fund model as well as expanded
technical guidance on measuring project savings, conducting
accounting procedures, and evaluating fund analytics.
• More case studies and solutions to common obstacles
provide a higher level of detail for administrators looking to
design and implement a GRF. Additionally, the guide still
includes sections on the components of a GRF, the process of
designing a fund, and information about joining the Billion
Dollar Green Challenge.
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http://greenbillion.org/resources/

7. CSA Green IT Protocol
• To qualify for Green Bond or Revolving
Door Funds ICT project must adhere to a
GHG reduction protocol
• New equipment or process must
demonstrate energy efficiency and/or
direct GHG reduction
– http://shop.csa.ca/en/canada/climate-
change/ict-protocol-version-
1/invt/27033222012
7
Scope
This protocol provides guidance for
estimating the emission reductions that
could result from the provision or
sourcing of low or zero carbon
information and communication
technology (ICT) services. This is an
increasingly important topic not only
because ICT has growing environmental
impacts, but also due the technical
complexities which underlie the delivery
of ICT as a service, especially in respect of
the growing use of cloud computing and
the provision of ICT services over the
internet. The protocol can be used both
for creating verifiable emission reductions
for carbon trading, and the quantification
and reporting of related low or zero
carbon ICT initiatives within corporate
sustainability reports.

8. Role of NRENs
• NRENs provide network solutions to reduce energy and GHG
consumption on campus, e.g.
– Connectivity to cloud and HPC providers that use renewable energy
– Virtualization and remote management of campus firewalls, WiFi,
routers etc
– Design and consultation of building campus networks that use
renewable energy
• NRENs can combine many small energy efficient ICT projects at
different campuses and aggregate into a single bond issue
– Similar to a mortgage backed security (without the negative aspects)
• NRENs manage conformance of project to Green Standards (e.g.
CSA) and negotiate Green Bond with underwriters
8

9. Biggest Challenge
• Most university IT departments do not pay for electrical
consumption
– Usually facilities department pays for electricity and does not
breakout electrical consumption of ICT
• NREN and CIO must negotiate with facilities department to
make payments on green bond fund related to the
reduction in energy consumption from more efficient ICT
equipment and network infrastructure
• Well quantified measurements and documentation
essential
9

10. R&E biggest consumer of electricity in
most jurisdictions
Australian Computer Society Study
http://www.acs.org.au/attachments/ICFACSV4100412.pdf
Per employee Per sector

11. The ICT energy consumption in
higher-ed
• Campus computing 20-40% electrical energy consumption on most
campuses
– Studies in USA, UK and The Netherlands
– http://goo.gl/k9Kib
• Closet clusters represent up to 15% of electrical consumption
– http://isis.sauder.ubc.ca/research/clean-technology-and-
energy/green-it/
• Campus data center alone represents 8-20% of electrical consumption
– http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=1341

12. Possible Business Models
• There are a range of outcomes and solutions to reduce energy consumption
– Decision factors include degree of risk, tolerance to risk, etc
• The simplest is to decouple from the grid and deploy local independent
sources of electricity (e.g. micro grids) that are not dependent on fossil fuel
deliveries and are loosely coupled to electrical grid such as solar panels and
windmills
– Many companies will pay for capital cost in return for guaranteed purchase of
power
– Power from local renewable power sources can be sold to grid under Feed In Tariff
(FIT) programs
– UCSD saves $850K per month because they deployed their own micro grid
• http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-17/ebay-to-ellison-embrace-microgrids-in-
threat-to-utilities.html
• Next step is to develop an energy routing architecture and policy
– Local independent renewable power will unlikely be sufficient for most institutions
so power will need to be routed in a priority basis
– Using SDN-P to integrate micro grids with data networks on campus and NRENs
http://goo.gl/SFaW6p
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13. Why de-couple from the Grid?
1. It saves money
– Cost of solar power cheaper than grid
power
– Deutsche Bank predicts solar will be
cheaper than electricity from grid in 80%
of the world by 2017
– http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/14/deu
tsche-bank-predicts-solar-grid-parity-80-
global-market-2017/
2. It provides for greater resiliency of
electricity supply
3. It reduces GHG emissions
4. May be forced to use solar power if
governments get serious about global
GHG treaty
13
3 hours of sunshine hitting the plant
equals our total annual energy
consumption

14. Research Challenge – University Building and
services powered with renewable energy only
• How do you provide mission critical services when energy source is
unreliable?
– Ebbing wind or setting sun
• Back up diesel are not an option because they are not zero carbon and
power outages can last for days or weeks
• Need new energy delivery architectures and business models to ensure
reliable service delivery
– R&E networks and clouds can play a critical role
– Not so much in energy efficiency, but building smart solutions that
adapt to availability of renewable power

15. Some real world solutions and
examples
15

16. MIT to build data center independent
of the electrical grid
• The data center will be managed and funded by the four
main partners in the facility: the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cisco Systems, the University of Massachusetts
and EMC.
• It will be a high-performance computing environment that
will help expand the research and development capabilities
of the companies and schools in Holyoke MA
– http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2009/06/11
/cisco-emc-team-mit-launch-100m-green-data-center
• Huge energy cost savings in being disconnected from
electrical grid
• Computers connected to universities in Boston by dedicated
high speed optical fiber

17. Solar powered student cell phone and
computer charging stations
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Street-charge.com

18. eVehicle energy storage and micro
grids for university
18
UCSD 2nd life battery program
University Delaware use of eVehicles for power

19. Research Initiatives- Self Reliant
Internet
• Building an Internet
architecture powered solely
with renewable power
• Virtually all routing and
forwarding done at edge using
local solar panels
– E.g. aBitCool
• RPON – reverse passive optical
networks, distributed FIBs
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http://www.slideshare.net/apnic/a
bitcool-a-vast-array-of-smallscale-
service-providers-with-gigabit-
access-by-tony-hain-apnic-38-
apops-3

20. Internet Powered at the Edge
Passive Optical
Splitter
TDM or WDM
return
Aggregator
(AOL or RBOC))
Google
Neighborhood
Colo Node
OXC
Customer
Controlled or
Owned Fiber
Active laser
& optional
CWDM at
customer
premises
Only the contracted
SP provides return
signal
Yahoo
Service
provider can
be several
km away
Active laser and
CWDM at
customer
premises.
Customer
controls routing
of lambdas
Neighbourho
od Colo
OXC
Service Provider A
Service Provider B
Edge router with distributed FIB

21. GreenStar Network
World’s First Cloud/Internet Powered solely by renewable energy independent of the
electrical grid
Cloud Manager
Host
Resource
Cloud Manager
Network
Manager
VM
Mantychore2
Host
Resource
Canadian GSN
Domain
European GSN
Domain
Dynamically Configure
IP Tunnel
• Shudown VM
• Copy Image • Update VM Context
• Start VM
Export VM
VM
VM
Internet
Notify EU
Cloud Manager
Cloud Proxy
Host Cloud Proxy
Lightpath
Optical switch Optical switch
Shared
storage
Shared
storage
Host
INTEC
UGhent

22. Virtualisation Applied to Networks
VR2
A DB C
ii) Path of Traffic after Virtual Router Migration
Host A
Host B
VR3VR1 VR4
Virtual Router Migration
Sleeping Router
VR2
A DB C
i) Path of Traffic before Virtual Router Migration
Host A
Host B
VR3VR1 VR4
Physical Router Platform
Virtual Router (VR) Instance
Optical Transport Switch
Optical Lightpath (A  D)
Host
Physical Link
Y. Wang, E. Keller, B.
Biskeborn, J. van der Merwe,
and J. Rexford, “Virtual
routers on the move: live
router migration as a
networkmanagement
primitive” in Proc. ACM
SIGCOMM, 2008
A key constraint is to maintain the logical IP topology
Use a combination of virtual router migration, infrastructure
sleeping together with traffic grooming in the optical layer

23. Research Initiatives-Energy Internet
• With SDN-P it is assumed that many energy consuming devices power have their own
local power source e.g:
– WiFi spot with its own solar panel
– Backup battery power on computer
– Electric vehicle with its own battery bank
– https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267037505_Software_Defined_Networks_for_Electrical
_Power_Distribution_over_Data_Channels_%28SDN-P%29
• Many possible virtual and real power circuits.
– PoE, USB, Traditional 110/220, 48V Dc,Pulse power over Cat 5
– Power routing across devices following path of virtual power circuit
• Ideal for existing intelligent networked devices like computers, switches, routers,
servers, Wifi hot spots , electric vehicle charging stations, etc
– Most of these devices have their own on board storage and so techniques such as round-robin
power distribution are possible
• Network engineers & researchers have to start thinking how to deploy networks that
are powered solely by solar power
– http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/rob-insight/an-earth-day-
look-at-the-sunny-state-of-solar/article18101176/#dashboard/follows/ …
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24. The benefits of challenges of SDN-P for
NRENs and data centers
• The Benefits:
– Providing dynamic workload redistribution
– Providing dynamic reallocation of resources to optimize the use of power
and finding the least costly power
– Providing resource-consumption planning, allowing for bulk purchases of
power and demand planning
– Automating responses to environmental changes or other trigger events
– Adjusting to changing power needs based on application demands
• Key takeaways from this report include:
– Because of software-defined power’s ROI and reliability benefits, it can
pay for itself in a short time.
– Innovative companies are leveraging software-defined power to increase
reliability and reduce costs.
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The benefits and challenges of software-defined power SDN-P
http://dlvr.it/5TGrR5

25. The role of eVehicle in Future Network
Architectures
• With dynamic mobile charging, the
eVehicle can be charged as it is travelling
along the highway using power from
roadside solar panels and/or windmills
– Technology already in use for public bus
transportation in various cities
• eVehicle can then be used to deliver this
energy as a backup or primary power source
to the network, rather than consuming
electricity at destination
• eVehicle becomes competitor to electrical
grid for delivery of renewable power to
homes, business & networks
• Ideal application for autonomous eVehicles
– http://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/dynamic-
charging-latest-developments-17234454

26. Cyber-infrastructure in a Carbon Constrained World
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0960.pdf

27. Let’s Keep The Conversation Going
E-mail
Blogs
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com
Twitter
http://twitter.com/BillStArnaud
Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
Bill St. Arnaud is a R&E Network and Green IT
consultant who works with clients on a variety
of subjects such as green data centers and
networks. He also works with clients to
develop practical solutions to reduce GHG
emissions from ICT (See http://green-
broadband.blogspot.com/) .