Perhaps it’s just my personal experience, but I find it pretty monotonous when individuals display their smartphone photos to me, often exhibiting one treasured instance or another. Blurred footage taken from concerts are even more tiresome. Indeed, the idea of attending a live show while recording with your smartphone appears to undermine the concert’s purpose.
Nonetheless, a large number of individuals wish to retain those memories and record their presence at these events. If these people have the desire to accumulate vast quantities of data from videos, photos, memes etc., we would require more data centres. The statement is simple – more photographs lead to more storage, which in turn leads to more capacity and ultimately, more data centres.
In essence, data centres are essential for survival in this digital era. If you envision that we will not revert to analogue technology and that the digital era is the present and the future, then the demand for data centres will grow exponentially, just like the eagerness to save photographs on your smartphone.
Data centres serve as the lifeline of the virtual world. Their absence causes a complete halt. Think about the website where you might be reading this piece of information. Have you ever wondered about the origin of this data and where it is stored? Data centres are vital in operating the IT systems of businesses in multiple industries such as telecommunications, financial services and government entities, ensuring smooth operation of everything from ecommerce to emergency services. They are an essential part of functioning world. However, the issue remains that they consumed substantial amounts of electricity.
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It’s common knowledge that computers are equipped with storage capabilities via hard drives, along with a processor, basic internet connectivity hardware, a battery, and a power source. As electricity courses through the computer, it generates heat that is then cooled by a small fan. This is mirrored in data centres but massively amplified. These facilities house not just one, but tens of thousands of hard drives or servers that hold, process and distribute extensive volumes of data, generating immense heat requiring advanced cooling systems. For hardware longevity, data centres’ temperatures should be maintained between 18-27 degrees – a feat more easily accomplished in colder climates such as Ireland’s.
There are in excess of 8,000 data centres worldwide with roughly one-third based in the US, 16% scattered throughout Europe and nearly 10% situated in China. Ireland has seen a significant upswing in data centre development, resulting in significantly increased electricity consumption. There are currently approximately 82 centres in Ireland, with 14 more under construction and 40 greenlit for future development. Notably, in 2023, data centres were responsible for nearly 21% of the total electricity generation in Ireland, a startling increase from 5% in 2015. This number is projected to hit 27% by 2028, placing data centres on track to outconsume all urban households combined.
A strategic question for Ireland thus arises – should the nation bow out from this global venture, or instead equip itself to integrate data centres into its industrial future-proofing strategy?
Just this week, South Dublin County Council denied Google Ireland’s bid for creating a new data centre at Grange Castle Business Park. Their justification revolved around the deficiency of capacity in the electricity network and insufficient onsite renewable energy for powering the centre. This decision could act as a tipping point, hinting at Ireland’s withdrawal from the data centre industry with a confession of lacking the necessary engineering competency to support this crucial element of the global economy. The question is, has Ireland given up due to recurrent inability to boost and sustain state capacity?
Environmental advocates would likely contend that data centres contribute to Ireland failing to meet its climate change objectives. However, the digital industry, as opposed to the traditional and more polluting economies, has far fewer environmental impacts. Ecommerce requires markedly less energy than traditional commerce, and along with data centres, it signifies the future.
Ireland has been an early adopter in the establishment of data centres and, thus, harbours a significant portion of data centre construction and engineering skills. The Irish market for data centres equates to an investment of nearly $3.32 billion (€3 billion) in 2023, foreseen to grow to $4.22 billion by 2029. Data centres greatly impact Ireland’s GDP, contributing approximately €1.3 billion to the economy in 2020. Amazon’s own data centres have reportedly created over 10,000 job opportunities annually in various areas such as construction, connection, maintenance and operation.
Employment within data centres presents premium jobs involving a variety of tasks, from data analytics and customer experience services to technical support and software development. As per IDA Ireland’s report in 2022, companies operating data centres in Ireland engage around 16,000 direct employees, but once the contractor numbers are factored, the figure increases to 27,000.
Irish companies are also establishing data centres worldwide. Ireland’s extensive experience in data centre construction has led to the emergence and subsequent international expansion of numerous Irish specialist firms.
Addressing the contention among those who fault data centres for being detrimental to the climate and those appreciating the established expertise and significant economic impact is imperative. We can opt to simplify matters by exporting our data centres and feel a sense of accomplishment for evading an environmental quandary while maintaining our habits. Or we could engage in “cathedral thinking,” fortifying our electricity grid, not in anticipation of today’s demand but for the potential demand of the future.
Finland has effectively leveraged waste heat from data centres to provide warmth and hot water to commercial and residential units, setting a fascinating precedent. Mäntsälä, a Finnish city, utilises heat waste from a Yandex-operated data centre to deliver heat to houses, thus reducing local heating expenditure by 11% and significantly cutting carbon emissions – the equivalent of removing 500,000 cars from the roads. Furthermore, Telia’s data centre in Helsinki has been amalgamated into the city’s district heating infrastructure since 2022, supplying carbon-neutral heating to thousands of residences. The warmth generated by its servers is adeptly captured and rerouted to the local heating grid. This initiative is a segment of Helsinki’s comprehensive agenda to eliminate fossil fuels and attain carbon neutrality by 2030.
However, despite a high density of data centres, Ireland has yet to fully unlock the opportunities offered by waste heat recovery. By adapting district heating systems akin to those in Finland, Ireland could not only decrease its dependence on fossil fuels but also offer a sustainable and economically viable heating solution for its cities.
In 2023, steps were taken in this direction with the initiation of a District Heating Scheme in Tallaght that repurposes waste heat from an Amazon data centre to warm up the South Dublin County Council offices and the local library. The heat is transported via hot water through a series of insulated pipes. This scheme is set to benefit 133 affordable flats planned on public land in Tallaght, with the prospect of eventually heating 2,000-3,000 apartments over its lifespan.
Why should this blueprint not be applied to all data centres across the country? Surely, there is an innovative and highly effective engineering solution that is more sophisticated than a simple binary decision, thereby offering a win-win outcome?