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# EcoCeres and Chindata to Trial Renewable Diesel for Data Centre Backup Power
- URL: https://review.iffw.sg/ecoceres-and-chindata-to-trial-renewable-diesel-for-data-centre-backup-power/
- Published: 2026-08-11T15:45:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-11T15:46:32.000Z
- Description: EcoCeres and Chindata signed an MOU to evaluate HVO as a drop-in diesel replacement for backup generators at Chindata's data centers, cutting emissions up to 94.4%. Both companies share Bain Capital as investor, extending EcoCeres' fuel strategy beyond transport into AI infrastructure.
- Author: Editor
- Tags: News, Renewable diesel, Asia Pacific

EcoCeres and Chindata have signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) as a renewable, drop-in replacement for conventional diesel in backup generators at selected Chindata data center sites in China. EcoCeres describes its HVO, produced from waste-based feedstocks, as delivering lifecycle greenhouse gas reductions of up to 94.4% compared with fossil diesel.

### **Why Data Centre Backup Power Is a Distinct Use Case** 

Every other fuel-switching story in this series has concerned a vehicle, vessel or aircraft in motion. Backup diesel generators at data centers sit still, running rarely, only during grid outages, but at guaranteed high reliability, since a failure risks the operational continuity of mission-critical digital infrastructure. HVO's appeal here is that it is chemically similar enough to conventional diesel to be used as a drop-in fuel in existing generators without equipment modification, meaning the switch addresses emissions without introducing new reliability risk to systems where failure is not an acceptable trade-off for decarbonization.

### **The Shared Ownership Behind the Partnership** 

Both companies are connected through the same private equity sponsor: Bain Capital holds a minority investment in EcoCeres, alongside Hong Kong and China Gas Company (Towngas), which incubated EcoCeres and remains a strategic shareholder, and separately led Chindata's USD 3.16 billion take-private in 2023, subsequently combining it with Bain's existing Bridge Data Centers platform. A shared institutional investor does not by itself explain why this specific MOU was signed, but it is a plausible factor in how the two companies came to work together, and worth noting as context rather than treating the partnership as two entirely unconnected companies finding each other independently.

### **Why This Matters Given the Broader AI Infrastructure Buildout** 

EcoCeres frames the collaboration explicitly against rising demand for data storage, cloud computing and AI infrastructure, and separately holds a similar MOU with Bridge Data Centers, Chindata's sister platform under the same ownership, to deploy HVO fuel at wider Asia-Pacific data center sites. As AI-driven data center construction accelerates, backup power emissions are becoming a genuinely relevant, if often overlooked, category within data center operators' broader Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions accounting, alongside the far larger and more discussed question of data centers' primary electricity consumption.

### **What an MOU of This Kind Does, and Does Not, Confirm** 

This is an evaluation agreement, not a signed supply contract; neither company has disclosed volumes, site count, pricing, or a timeline for moving from evaluation to actual deployment. EcoCeres's own public materials describe this partnership, alongside its Bridge Data Centers and prior British Airways SAF agreements, as part of a broader pattern of applying the same core HVO product across multiple hard-to-abate sectors, transport and now data center backup power, using the same production base rather than developing sector-specific fuel products for each.

*Source:* [*Full Vision Capital*](https://www.fullvisioncapital.com/news/ecoceres-and-chindata-collaborate-on-low-carbon-backup-power-for-data-centers/?ref=review.iffw.sg)*, 15 July 2026.*