Unlike the housing crisis, it seems that private enterprise is leading the charge when it comes to gearing up for Net Zero, leaving the Government free to look on and nod approvingly.
This is very evident in the challenge of getting our national building stock in line with EU Net-Zero directives for the net-zero target year of 2050.
As the date draws closer, the activity in the private sector across Europe has been gaining momentum, with a plethora of initiatives being set up by companies of various sizes, but it’s towards the domain of large buildings — including distribution centres but also data storage centres — that the major climactic battleground is surely shifting.
Amongst some of the interesting initiatives is American super-company Amazon. At their UK subsidiary, they launched a programme inviting people to submit ideas for improving sustainability at their large distribution centres (known in Amazon-speak as ‘fulfilment centres’) throughout Europe.
This elicited some superb ideas with often ground-breaking technological applications for buildings, storage methods and packaging that reduce waste and render the business of maintaining large buildings and everything within them much more sustainable.
While British company Cheesecake Energy (founded by Nottingham University) came up with a solar energy capture-and-storage solution that will be used in a number of Amazon’s European distribution centres, it was Dublin company HT Materials Science that showed what Irish-based sustainable technology can do in the field.
Their nanofluid solution for the heating and cooling systems at Amazon’s UK distribution centres is expected to cut Amazon’s energy consumption by 14%.
Since it was launched in 2022, the Amazon Sustainability Accelerator programme has supported more than 40 small nascent companies across Europe, with an output of more than £1 million in grants and credits. According to Amazon’s Sustainability Director Justine Mahler, the programme has helped those start-ups increase their sales by over 700% on average, as well as raising over £15 million.
In Ireland, meanwhile, perhaps the most interesting fault-line in all of this is that of the data centres. The digital revolution era that we currently live in puts exponential demand on data storage from the millions of mobile devices and computers in constant use around the world. All this data needs large physical spaces that are only going to increase in number and in size.
In Ireland, the power consumption of combined data centres has now surpassed that of the combined households of Ireland. By 2027, it is estimated that data centres will be consuming 31% of all of Ireland’s energy requirements.
This begs the question of just how sustainable this way of doing business is.
Meanwhile, these enormous buildings containing data continue to be built and with each building, the level of concern and criticism amongst the general public increases.
Ireland has a strong history as a country of data centres, going back to the mainframes of the 1960s. In recent years, more questions have been asked about the sustainability of the sector and of the behemoths of buildings it produces.
Talk of the sector’s demise and of a flight of data centres to other jurisdictions seem to be a bit premature. According to a report published in October this year by UCD’s PublicPolicy.ie website, there are currently 82 data centres in Ireland, with a further 14 under construction and another 40 centres that have received planning approval. Dublin is the largest data centre cluster in Europe.
The same report makes the simple case that data centres are a “key barrier” to Ireland meeting its climate obligations.
Irish company Echelon Data Centres (who already have six data centres across Ireland and the UK) were recently given the green light for a connection to the national electricity grid for their latest building which is to be constructed in County Wicklow.
So how does such a massive consumer of power such as a data centre possibly go all green? By creating its own sustainable power on-site, that’s how. That, and tap into the grey matter locally in order to stay in touch with (and encourage) innovation; in this case, in the form of building a digital technology campus in Arklow.
This is the approach that Echelon are taking with their DUB20 data centre, which is to be located on the site of the former Irish Fertilizer plant at Avoca River Business Park in the Garden County.
“DUB20 is a model for the future,” says Cormac Nevin, Echelon’s head of energy systems, “and EirGrid’s decision to provide a grid connection for the facility will ensure investment of €3.5bn in data centre and energy infrastructure in Co Wicklow.
“DUB20 will demonstrate what is possible when we co-locate critical infrastructure like data centres and renewable energy resources. Everyone at Echelon is now looking forward to building Ireland’s greenest large-scale data centre.
“It’s an endorsement of sustainable data centre development as it follows a pathway to net zero emissions and demonstrates the role of Government policy in achieving that. It’s also a strong statement that Ireland takes its climate responsibilities seriously but is open for business to the data centre sector and the jobs and inward investment that comes with it.”
The jobs benefit in this case is expected to be approximately 1,300 employees. Echelon’s investment partners include Florida-based Starwood Capital Group, which has injected over €850,000,000 in the Irish-based company to become a 50% shareholder.
Another important player in the Irish data centre market is American company Park Place Technologies. Its MD, Ian Shearer, says that the concerns regarding data centres’ energy usage are valid but should be “seen as an incentive to innovate.”
“Power requirements for these 24/7 facilities cause immense strain on the power grid,” acknowledges Shearer, “especially following the digitisation boom triggered by the pandemic that increased demand for these facilities around the world.
“Grid operators and governments are focused on making progress toward Ireland’s climate action goals, which include a 30% reduction in emissions and 70% reliance on renewable sources of energy by 2030, as well as a goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.”
According to Shearer, the breakthrough for data centre buildings is for new applicants to “propose solutions to electricity supply challenges, such as on-site dispatchable energy storage, or on-site generation to offset energy demands.”
In other words, exactly the kind of thing that Echelon are currently doing with their new Wicklow data centre. For existing data centres, adds Shearer, it’s a case of fine-tuning their buildings as best they can:
“These companies are active purchasers of Irish renewable energy and are inherently incentivised to increase processing output without increasing power consumption. This is achieved through routine hardware refreshes and software upgrades, as well as other operational improvements, such as investment in innovative cooling techniques that leverage natural resources or renewable energy sources.”
Ultimately, however, it’s a case of data centres working together to keep bringing the changes that are rapidly transforming the landscape for the mega-buildings of tomorrow.
