Data centres go up, while emissions must come down

Critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions provider Vertiv has released its Guide to Data Centre Sustainability, an online resource for data centre owners and operators seeking to reduce the environmental impact of their facilities.

According to the International Energy Agency, data centres account for about 1% of global electricity demand. The agency’s Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks report notes that the industry was able to limit the impact of capacity growth on total energy consumption prior to 2020 by improving operating efficiency.

However, in 2020 global internet traffic surged by more than 40%, and market intelligence projects a 13% compound annual growth rate in data centre construction over the next five years. That trend, combined with increased focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption, has led some operators to seek new solutions that increase equipment utilisation and drive out remaining inefficiencies, phase out water-intensive cooling technologies, and decrease their dependence on carbon-based energy sources.

“We’re seeing a sense of urgency by operators across the industry to reduce the impact of their operations on the environment, and this new resource is designed to help them do just that,” said TJ Faze, Head of ESG Strategy & Engagement at Vertiv.

“The focus on operational efficiency has enabled significant improvements, but now new strategies and more intelligent systems are required to drive down emissions and water use as the industry continues to grow. As a provider of infrastructure solutions to enterprises, colocation and cloud providers, Vertiv is well-positioned to share best practices and new developments across these sectors.”

The industry movement has been led by large hyperscale operators who have set goals to become carbon neutral or carbon negative by the end of this decade. These operators are taking the lead in advancing technologies that support these goals and developing a roadmap for the rest of the industry. Many colocation providers are also moving to carbon-neutral and water-efficient operations to capitalise on market demand for data centre services that support their enterprise customers’ environmental goals. Enterprises must also address the impact of their on-premises data centres to support those goals.

“In A/NZ, we’re seeing data centres placing more pressure on power consumption,” said Robert Linsdell, Managing Director Australia and New Zealand at Vertiv.

“Generating more than 5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, dedicated investment toward our digital ecosystem and data security and sovereignty posture has made Australia a haven for disaster recovery across Asia Pacific. Equivalent to consuming 3.5% of total national energy use, our burgeoning data centre industry is hungry to reduce its environmental impact.”

The guide provides advice for operators on:

• The business case for reducing environmental impact
• How data centre infrastructure and complementary technologies are evolving to support higher utilisation and increased use of renewable energy
• Resources, frameworks and metrics for implementing and measuring sustainability initiatives
• Best practices for designing and operating low-impact data centres.
   

“As data centres have become critical to daily business and personal activities, sustainability is now front and centre at board-level discussions among enterprises in the region. Sustainability strategies have been elevated from footnotes to real-life applications, amid the growth in compute applications from the edge to hyperscale facilities. Vertiv’s guide to sustainability aims to provide data centre operators with practical recommendations on design and operations to help them meet their sustainability goals,” said Tony Gaunt, Vice President for Colocation and Hyperscale at Vertiv ASI.

The Vertiv Guide to Data Centre Sustainability is available for download here.

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