Data is everything and powers everything we do, from cloud solutions to 5G real-time communications. However, as our usage of data grows, the question of how to store this increasing amount of data presents its own challenges. 

Data centers are at the core of this solution, and we see an increasing number of newly built data centers (greenfield projects) around the globe, in particular, concentrated in certain hubs (like Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Paris) on Continental Europe. While being an attractive asset class, this trend is also accompanied by sustainability challenges given the huge amount of power and energy consumption for cooling purposes.

This can be vividly demonstrated by the example of Ireland. In 2022, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), data centers used almost a fifth of the Irish electricity. Furthermore, as a trend it can be recognized that the amount of electricity required by data centers has increased rapidly in Ireland over the past few years. Since 2015, it has increased by 400%. Thus, the question of whether data centers can be operated in a sustainable manner is quite pressing, considering their increased energy demand. Some countries have responded to the increased demand for energy by imposing a moratorium on data center projects. Singapore, for example, imposed a moratorium on new data center projects in 2019 which was then only lifted in 2022 when stricter sustainability requirements were demanded instead. 

Since there is also a political agenda to attract data centers and thereby “control” the storage of data, it is rather unlikely that a country will be able to impose moratoriums in the future. Instead of simply prohibiting data center projects, a solution has to be found for operating data centers in a sustainable manner. 

Ireland’s Climate Minister Eamon Ryan addressed the environmental issues evoked by data centers at the National Economic Dialogue by stating that every single data center should come up with flexible systems to deliver low carbon electricity and think of ways to use the waste heat effectively. When it comes to the operation of data centers, the trend in the future must be to move away from the mere consumption of energy to the production of self-obtained energy. Furthermore, the produced thermal energy needs to be used effectively. This chapter will present three – possible – approaches under which the sustainable operation of data centers will be possible in the future, with reference to projects already intended in some countries in this area.