In this article, Mark Yeeles, VP for Schneider Electric’s Secure Power Division in the UK and Ireland shares his first impressions of the data centre industry and the key challenges affecting it including sustainability and the energy crisis, increased demands for digitisation, and the need to both attract and retain talent.
Data centres are undoubtedly the backbone of our digital lives. Yet as appetites for data, hosted applications and connectivity accelerate, so with it, do the demands placed on the sector.
How will today’s challenges affect the data centres of the future?
The industry itself faces a clear and prominent issue: As digital dependency and consumption proliferate, so does the need for more physical infrastructure. This, in turn, begs new questions; ‘how much growth can the industry expect to see, and how much energy will the data centre of the future consume?’
Without data centres, it’s clear the world would be a very different place. From general internet usage to streaming and social media, people interact with data centres hundreds of thousands of times per day without knowing. So, with supply a direct result of market demand, one might question if the industry’s sustainability problem is only the responsibility of those who are within it, or also those who are dependent on it?
The irony is that it’s both.
Closing the sustainability gap
Having recently joined the industry from the industrial automation sector, the first thing that struck me is the general lack of awareness about data centres’ within the digital landscape. By many accounts, data centres are estimated to account for around 1% of global electricity consumption, and according to an article shared by McKinsey, the world’s largest tech organisations allocated $9 billion to build out new capacity in 2022—a number expected to grow by over 4% annually until 2030.
Since its inception, the data centre industry has spent much time in isolation, only recently breaking mainstream headlines due to its energy and projected environmental impact. The timing of media interest has coincided with new regulations and legislation including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), both of which are set to change the sector for the better.
From an industry standpoint, the gap between sustainable intent and action has grown considerably. On the one hand, data centre operators have led the charge, providing a template for energy-intensive industries to decarbonise. On the other, analysts have stated the industry isn’t as far down the path to net zero as statements of intent would have us believe. Forrester, for example, found that while 73% of colocation providers ranked sustainability as their #2 business priority, only 33% had created a strategic sustainability plan.
Regardless of the current position, business leaders across the sector including investors, C-Level executives and engineers state that sustainability remains right at the top of the business agenda. I believe this year we’ll see many stakeholders accelerate efforts to make their infrastructure and organisations more sustainable.
The use of emerging technologies, coupled with close collaboration between businesses, utilities, local communities and governments across the UK and Ireland alike can help close the sustainability gap further. These might include new initiatives to reuse waste heat from data centres in district heating systems, or building decentralised energy capabilities, such as microgrids, to reduce reliance on an already congested grid.
Energy crisis: a catalyst for efficiency
The energy crisis has also provided a prominent reminder that businesses and consumers can take nothing for granted. With spiralling energy costs wreaking havoc on business and industry, operational and energy efficiency have become both financial and environmental points of differentiation.
Power prices, for example, have been a catalyst for a new-found focu...
