Green IT
Reaping the rewards
of green computing
is, simply put, good business.
Data centres having a strategy to
contribute to green computing
have several advantages, including:
A lower net cost of computing as
a result of heat recovery and grid
services that generate additional
revenue; lower legal, regulatory
and political risk in the European
political context; a stronger local
connection that expands the scope
for legitimate growth over time
thanks to positive synergies –
such as grid services and heat
recovery – that benefit the
neighborhood or the municipality
and also, a lower cost of green
financing with investments in
sustainable and environmentally
friendly infrastructure. Last, but
not least, greater demand from
customers making conscious
choices to offer end-users the
attractiveness of ‘clicking green’ is
also an advantage.
Practically implementing a
strategy for green computing
involves using multiple means.
The most critical is to choose a
geography that has conditions and
24 | October 2017
regulations that are conducive to
sustainable solutions. Particularly
relevant in this context is the
supply elasticity of renewable
electricity, the value of heating and
tax incentives for green and energy
efficient solutions.
Related to the choice of
geography is the more specific
question of site selection.
Finding real estate that permits
efficient greenfield design and net
zero solutions involves finding
appropriately zoned land in
proximity of densely populated
areas. Building hyperscale
is a straightforward way to
achieve efficiencies, both with
respect to capital utilisation and
contributions to fixed costs.
To be able to combine
hyperscale with grid services and
net zero solutions it is typically
advantageous to be connected to
multiple strong infrastructures.
Finally, energy efficient and
sustainable solutions benefit
from system optimisation, i.e. an
integrated view of the value added
chain of IT-as-a-Service.
“Data
centres can
contribute to
sustainability
by applying
a green
strategy.”
Stockholm offers an interesting
commercial and technical
test bed for green computing.
There are ongoing changes and
upcoming possibilities in all areas
of green computing discussed in
this article.
First, the TSO – i.e. Swedish
national grid operator SVK - is
considering opening the market
for the Frequency Containment
Reserve allowing private
companies to provide balancing
services that would give them
additional revenues from
local energy storage and load
management capabilities.
Second, large data centres
have direct access to renewable
energy generation with a
forecasted expansion of wind
power in Sweden of approximately
2,000MW during 2017-2020. The
9,133MW permitted, yet to be
constructed, onshore wind power
projects in Sweden gives further
room for extensive renewable
energy supply.
Third, an emerging market for
highly efficient Stockholm-based
hyperscale data centres can be
seen with the forthcoming AWS
cloud region and the forthcoming
Multigrid wholesale region as
well as the expanding Digiplex
wholesale campus and Ericsson’s
global ICT Centre.
Fourth, recent examples of
changes that make buildings more
sustainable include green roofs
used to handle storm water and
non-evaporative or cl