Summary Bullets:
• The European Commission (EC) continues to set the benchmark for sustainability reporting in technology as part of the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EEED).
• Signs of ongoing innovation to mitigate climate damage from data centers and use scarce resources as efficiently as possible as demand continues to grow.
The European Union’s climate goals aim to “enhance present and future energy security and affordability.” With the information and communication technology (ICT) sector as a focus for sustainability, the EC notes that in 2018, the energy consumption of data centers in the EU was 76.8 TWh. This is expected to rise by 28% to 98.5 TWh by 2030, with data centers accounting for 3.2% of energy demand by 2030 (2018: 2.7%). It notes that “these projections are expected to be revised upwards considering the strong growth of emerging services and technologies such as streaming, cloud gaming, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual reality.”
As a result, EU member states are to require data centers in their territory to make information about their energy performance and sustainability publicly available. The aim of the rating scheme is to allow for comparisons between data centers and to promote new designs and efficiency actions to reduce energy and water consumption. It is also aimed at promoting the use of renewable energy, improve grid efficiency, and encourage reusing heat.
There is an example of this in South Dublin (Ireland) where the Tallaght District Heating Scheme – a collaboration of local agencies and Amazon Web Services (AWS) – is set to provide council buildings and a new residential development with heat from the local data center. The project claims phase 1 will save 1,441 tons of CO2 annually by connecting to 1,962 homes and serving 47,000 square meters of public buildings.
Other innovations are cropping up worldwide. In early March 2024, Amazon announced that a new AWS data center will be directly powered by a nuclear power plant, with Talen Energy selling its 1,200-acre data center campus in Pennsylvania (US), Cumulus Data Assets, to AWS for $650 million.
With demand for energy and water only set to increase as data center market growth shows no sign of slowing, a combination of imaginative new power and cooling models, combined with greater efficiency and reuse of resources, should help at least help to minimize the inevitable climate impact.