Data centres are a fundamental part of today’s modern computing infrastructure. Each click online and every mail sent is information stored in data centres. A critical requirement in order to run a data centre is the uninterrupted power supply. Consequently, the energy demands of these data centres are enormous. As the end-consumer demands instant access to the Internet and mails, most data centres have a backup diesel generator to insure power supply at all times.
In fact, today, data centres require 2% of the total global energy consumption. It is forecasted, that the demand for computing devices will only rise further in the next years and the number of IoT devise will amount around 20 billion by 2020. Undoubtedly, the need for more data results in the need for more data centres. Researchers predict that data centres will consume 1/5 of the earths power by 2025.
In order to relate power generation to carbon emissions one must consider the energy mix (from which sources power is generated) of a country. In China, for instance ¾ of the power generation is still based on coal plants. This results in their data centres emitting carbon emissions equivalent to 21 million cars.
As the awareness to reduce carbon emissions and power consumption is at an all-time high, this challenges companies in the ICT sector to address this problem. But how?
Creating power through renewable energy sources is one measure to reduce emissions. Companies like Google and Apple have already reacted to this issue and reached their goal of supplying their global operations (data centres, retail stores, company HQs…) only from renewable energy sources. Amazon, Microsoft and Alibaba set their aims for achieving this goal within the next decade. For example, in the Netherlands, Google has acquired a wind farm through a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) which supplies not only their data centre in Eemshaven but is giving renewable energy back to the community at the same time.
Another aspect would be the reduction of energy consumption in data centres. Companies compare their PUE (power usage efficiency) of data centres in order to efficiently reduce energy. Cooling, in conventional data centres, takes up 40% of the energy in a data centre as well as a lot of water. In order to tackle this problem, companies have tried to find innovative cooling solutions in terms of matching their system towards weather and other factors.
Essentially, ICT companies will be challenged to raise data centre storage efficiency and at the same time lowering energy consumption or change to renewable sources of power generation in order to keep the environmental impact of the industry in check.
References:
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Forbes.com. (2019). Council Post: Why Energy Is A Big And Rapidly Growing Problem For Data Centers. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/15/why-energy-is-a-big-and-rapidly-growing-problem-for-data-centers/#632a2b85a307 [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
Lima, J. (2019). Data centres of the world will consume 1/5 of Earth’s power by 2025 – Data Economy. [online] Data Economy. Available at: https://data-economy.com/data-centres-world-will-consume-1-5-earths-power-2025/ [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
Marashi, A. (2019). Power Hungry: The Growing Energy Demands of Data Centers. [online] Vxchnge.com. Available at: https://www.vxchnge.com/blog/power-hungry-the-growing-energy-demands-of-data-centers [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
Nature.com. (2019). How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity. [online] Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y [Accessed 15 Sep. 2019].
Synek, G. (2019). Data centers are using two percent of the world’s energy. [online] TechSpot. Available at: https://www.techspot.com/news/77510-data-centers-using-two-percent-world-energy.html [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
Zaugg, J. (2019). China’s data centers emit as much carbon as 21 million cars. [online] CNN Buiness. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/10/asia/china-data-center-carbon-emissions-intl-hnk/index.html [Accessed 13 Sep. 2019].
