The European Union leads the world in its efforts to reduce the energy consumption of data centers and optimize its responsible procedures, without compromising the critical functions of facilities that in 2030 could multiply current electricity demand tenfold. Data centers have traditionally had tense relationships with the environment over the past few decades. In fact, high energy demands took a backseat to the imperative need to manage growing flows of information.
The situation is now complicated by the rapid development of Generative Artificial Intelligence and machine learning (ML), revolutions that multiply the demand for data centers, with a greater environmental impact. As an example, “every person in the developed world will have at least one interaction with a data center every 18 seconds of their life in the year 2025”, according to assessments by MTP (Mexico Telecom Partners), in a trend that has no turn back.
“Today’s most advanced microchips have six times more processing power than standard chips, but that comes with higher power consumption. In fact, in the next two years, most AI computing in the cloud will use microchips. that get too hot to be cooled by conventional air circulation,” according to Microsoft sources. Where appropriate, liquid immersion cooling is expected to reduce future data center energy consumption by 5 to 15%, to greatly minimize overall data center water use.
Thanks to the commitment of companies, administrations and regulators, the environmental sustainability of data centers has become one of the fundamental pillars of the business. As is usual in the First World, Europe usually takes the lead in these matters, not only due to the greater collective awareness of its citizens, but also due to the continental regulatory pressure that falls on this type of activities.
The Spanish Executive has raised its voice on the continent to raise the environmental and economic challenges of the infrastructure that makes the digital society possible. If in 2018 the data center sector accounted for 2.7% of electricity demand, this market could increase almost tenfold in 2030. In that year, the consumption of these facilities located in Europe was estimated at 76. 8 TWh, while this figure is expected to increase to 98.5 TWh until 2030, with an increase of 28%. “This increase in absolute terms can also be seen in relative terms: within the Union, data centers represented 2.7% of electricity demand in 2018 and, if the current trajectory continues, they will reach 3.21% in 2030”, according to European Union sources.
All companies that are part of the technological ecosystem assume as their own the commitment to accelerate the growth of clean energy, in order to keep the planet below 1.5 °C of warming, among other global challenges. For its part, the Agency Energy International estimates that global electricity consumption from data centers is expected to double between 2022 and 2025, with consumption of 460 terawatt-hours (TWh). Given these projections, the European Commission has urged member countries to monitor the development of data centers so that they are highly efficient from an energy point of view, in addition to incorporating transparency measures regarding the environmental footprint of telecommunications operators. This is stated in its document entitled Shaping Europe’s digital future, where the EU is considered a potential model to inspire the world with a digital society based on European values and standards. In the specific case of data centers, attention in the EU points to Directive 2023/1791, of September 13, 2023, regarding energy efficiency.
We must go to article 12 to go into depth about a regulation that proposes a common evaluation regime for all EU data centers. “These new regulations establish a legal framework for transparency and the collection of data on the energy consumption of data centers, with the aim of promoting sustainability in this sector,” according to sources from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Challenge. Demographic (MITECO).RefrigerationThe same department ensures that the new regulations “establish a legal framework for transparency and the collection of data on the energy consumption of data centers, with the aim of promoting sustainability in this sector.” This affects consumption linked to cooling, lighting, battery packs or uninterruptible power supplies, but not servers, network connection equipment, storage, workstations, laptops, photocopiers, sensors, equipment security, or white goods appliances and audiovisual devices.
Among the obligations of data centers, the date of May 15 of each year is marked in red, the day on which data centers with an electrical power demanded by information technology (IT) systems of 500 kW or More must publish their energy and environmental information annually. This documentation must provide transparency on “the collection and publication of data that is relevant to the energy performance, water footprint and flexibility of demand of data centers.” In Europe, it is considered that an inspection of large facilities, both of new and existing ones, “can lead to a considerable reduction in energy and water consumption, an increase in the efficiency of the systems that promotes the decarbonization of the network or the reuse of waste heat in heat installations and networks at a close distance”.
Hunting for waste heat
Among other actions, the regulator encourages “cooling system solutions that allow residual heat to be eliminated or captured at a useful temperature level with minimum auxiliary energy power.” Faced with this demand, Member States are called upon to “seek to eliminate obstacles to the use of waste heat and provide support for the adoption of this resource when installations are planned for the first time or renovated.”
In parallel, community institutions promote a Code of Conduct for the energy efficiency of data centers, created by the Joint Research Center (JRC), with the aim of “informing and encouraging operators and owners of data centers to reduce energy consumption in a cost-effective manner without compromising the critical functions of these facilities. Broadly speaking, the great challenge is to “reduce the environmental, economic and security repercussions of the energy supply.”
Last year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) achieved its goal of “combining 100% of the electricity it consumes with renewable energy.” To set the challenge of achieving zero net carbon emissions in 2040. Among some of the notable achievements of AWS, it stands out that “its infrastructure is up to 4.1 times more energy efficient than the on-premise and can reduce the carbon footprint of workloads by up to 99%”. The cloud giant also returns more than 7 billion liters of water to local communities each year through water replenishment efforts. To increase efficiency, AWS focuses on all aspects of infrastructure, from data center and hardware design to operational performance modeling to continually improve efficiency. Only in this way – they add – “can we reduce the amount of energy necessary to operate our data centers.”
Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of energy for Google Cloud data centers, has indicated from the corporate blog that her group has signed power purchase agreements (PPA) for more than 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of energy capacity clean energy in North America and Europe, “taking us closer to our 2030 goal of running on carbon-free energy (CFE) 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on all the networks in which we operate.”
Microsoft also shares the commitments of its competitors, as evidenced by the environmental leadership of Azure, a platform that “considers sustainability and humanity’s response to climate change as one of the greatest challenges in history.” In this endeavor, the software and cloud giant has committed “to making sustainable technologies the top priority of our innovation, to ensure that we adapt and evolve at the pace the planet does, with minimal environmental impact.” “, as indicated on their corporate page.
For now, Azure’s workbook contemplates that 100% of the energy consumed will be renewable in 2025. It will also work to have a positive water balance in 2030, that is, being able to replenish more water resources than it will use in that year. Also in 2030 it will be able to completely eliminate all its operational waste. Regarding compensation to local communities, Microsoft places sustainability as a corporate priority, “for which it has expanded environmental objectives beyond the way we operate data centers.
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