As more and more facilities are outfitted to increase their use of renewable energy, the EU Data Center Regulation expects that more will be taking advantage of their many benefits.
A prime example of these benefits is the reduced cost, as non-renewable resources are expensive and risky. The second benefit is that it helps reduce the carbon footprint, which helps the environment and shows goodwill towards customers and other stakeholders.
Energy Crisis Pushing EU Data Center Regulation Enforcement More Strict
More and more, European countries are looking to go green by using green energy sources. Within the EU, data centers are no exception to this trend. A new regulation in May of last year required data centers to make an effort towards using a certain percentage of green energy. Data centers that fail to do so will be charged a fine per watt of power they use. The biggest challenge for these companies is figuring out how to retrofit their existing energy systems without negatively impacting their businesses.
The energy crisis sweeping Europe has prompted the European Union (EU) to make new rules for data centers that will be green, sustainable, and more energy-efficient. This regulation will require data centers to use renewable energy sources like sun, wind, geothermal, and biomass.
The European Union is taking a closer look at how data centers use their energy resources and what they plan to do to cut down on their carbon footprint in the future. These data centers are used by companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon to store information they collect from users worldwide. These companies are coming under increased scrutiny as they expand their operations and grow larger each year.
In the past few years, there have been several instances of significant outages and service disruptions that have affected websites run by these large technology companies. Google, for example, has been experiencing issues with its cloud services that have taken down some of its most popular services, such as Gmail and YouTube. As more people become dependent on these services, these companies must do everything they can to ensure uptime and prevent disruptions that could cause widespread problems for their users.
But That’s Still Not Enough.
Although the details of how this will affect data centers are still being worked out, one thing is clear: if companies don’t start using cleaner energy sources, they’ll be hit with financial penalties. If things go as planned, there will also be an increased focus on renewable energy sources, even though they may be more expensive than non-renewable sources.
The drive to use more sustainable and renewable energy sources is admirable. However, data centers have become so dependent on cheap electricity that it takes time to immediately switch to clean energy sources.
Data Center Workloads Keep Increased Globally
The data center workload has been increasing steadily in the past ten years. The growth rate is usually between 15 and 20% each year—the growth results from increased internet users and businesses using the cloud computing model. Cloud computing allows companies to rent digital infrastructure services on demand. Businesses can use this service to store, process, and distribute data. As companies start to use cloud computing, they need more servers that require a data center.
Over the past ten years, cloud computing, social networking, mobile internet, big data, and so on have become pervasive around us, and these application types are becoming increasingly complex. Therefore, their impact on data center workload has become increasingly significant.
As we can see in statista the increase in internet traffic is almost directly proportional to the rise in data center workload.
In 2023, many organizations have already begun using renewable resources such as solar panels, but most use them for nonessential purposes. In contrast to this approach, the EU expects all companies to use renewable energy for all power requirements.
The good news is that data center energy usage has remained the same over the past ten years. But, of course, not all data centers use 100% renewable energy. However, from this graphic, we can see the effectiveness of EU data center regulation enforcement. This applies globally, not only in Europe.
We must stop data center dependence on fossil energy. Meanwhile, most data centers in the world still use energy from fossils.
Indonesia Data Center Start Reducing 50% Carbon Emissions Footprint.
Indonesia is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but the country’s data center workload trend impacts reducing carbon emissions. As the third largest electricity consumer in the world, Indonesia must gradually reduce its carbon footprint.
2018 is the year that Indonesia set aside for companies operating in the country to reach a 50% reduction in their carbon emissions. To achieve this goal, data centers must focus on reducing energy usage and finding alternative power sources.
This is why many Indonesian data center operators are investing in new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). These technologies help them with weather forecasting so they can switch on the cooling systems before the heat builds up in the data center, saving energy and money.
The Indonesian government has committed to start gradually closing their coal-fired power plants. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government has provided electricity from cleaner energy sources, such as LNG and Geothermal.
LNG is not 100% environmentally friendly, but LNG’s carbon emissions are 50% lower than coal and oil-fuel carbon emissions. In addition, the price of electricity from gas generators is slightly lower than coal. Indonesia’s data centers widely use on-grid and off-grid strategies, and they are transforming into green data centers.
Read also: The Best Green Data Center Locations is in Indonesia
Conclusion
An EU data center regulation is encouraging more organizations to use renewable energy. The regulation requires a data center to have its own power supply; if that’s not green enough, they need to purchase the difference in electricity elsewhere.
The regulation would require data centers to use at least 15% of renewable energy by 2020 and 20% by 2025. The exact requirements would vary depending on each member state, with more advanced states having more stringent requirements than other member states.
Using green energy sources, like wind or solar power, can help reduce the environmental impact and contribute positively to the community.