24/7 carbon-free energy (24/7 CFE)

24/7 carbon-free energy is a sustainability standard requiring every megawatt-hour of electricity a facility consumes, in every hour of the day, to be matched with carbon-free generation from the same regional grid — a stricter bar than annual renewable-energy matching, which lets buyers offset nighttime fossil consumption with daytime solar surpluses elsewhere. Google popularized the metric, reporting its global fleet running on roughly 66% hourly-matched carbon-free energy as of its latest disclosure, and data centers are the primary reason hyperscalers pursue it, since their load runs continuously while wind and solar output varies by hour. Hitting high 24/7 CFE scores typically requires a diversified contracted portfolio spanning solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear or long-duration storage, plus hourly grid-mix data to verify the match. The standard is gaining traction beyond Google through the UN-backed 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact, and is increasingly cited in colocation RFPs from AI and cloud tenants seeking genuinely low-carbon capacity rather than annually netted claims.