Data center ien toene: A ⛯ vision for the sustainable energy ⌁ transition in Groningen 🗼
A recent article on nu.nl (in Dutch) tells a familiar story of public opinion on hyperscale data centers: Most people don’t want them in their backyard
- “They use too many resources” (electricity, water); “that power is better used for households”
- “They hardly create any jobs”
- “They create too much load on the power grid”
Refreshingly, the province of Groningen (my hometown) at least keeps the door open; there is already a large Google facility in Eemshaven, and they are willing to discuss conditions for expansion and/or other data center operators.
In 2018 the city of Groningen was appointed as a Lighthouse City by the European Union; this further illustrates the willingness to lead in this important transition to sustainable energy usage.
A different, more holistic view on data centers
Most people know very little about data centers, or the way they operate. Opinions are often based on the newspapers or what they hear from friends or colleagues, and much folklore is developed, intermixed with emotions and concerns. Please don’t get me wrong: Everyone is certainly entitled to their own views and opinions. However, consider the following:
Energy usage
Data centers require power to run computers and other equipment. The Dutch Data Center Association reports that they used 2.3% of all available electricity in 2019. Most of this energy is converted to heat, and today (2022) most heat is lost (vented into the atmosphere).
While hyperscale data centers can use a large amount of power (Meta recently proposed a 200MW(=720GJ) data center), they are also very flexible in the amount of power they use, and at which time of day. Unlike households in Groningen (who used ~25GJ per year in 2017), a hyperscale data center can pretty much allocate and schedule its power usage dynamically, depending on needs and (green) power availability. This can be leveraged to mitigate demand/supply fluctuations, caused by varying consumption and input levels.
“Waste” heat reuse
It is possible to capture the heat generated by data centers, and reuse it for applications such as greenhouse heating or household warming. Blockheating recently started doing this in Venlo for example, to help grow tomatoes and cucumbers in greenhouses. Another example is Switch Datacenters in Amsterdam, who pay their clients for the heat they generate; this program won them a Computable Sustainability reward in 2021.
Consumer households require the most heating during wintertime, when outside temperatures are lowest. People do take showers throughout the year, and other applications like greenhouse warming also require year-long heat supply.
It is important to emphasize that the electricity used to produce the heat has already been spent; the data center is not “taking away” energy from households, but rather converting and replacing it with different forms (heat and data). In fact, the Netflix movies and Snapchat photos we receive can be viewed as a highly refined, personalized stream of energy.
Benefits for the local community (beyond jobs)
Modern hyperscale data centers use a high degree of automation and are largely operated remotely; they therefore require relatively few local human operators. This means that they do not create many jobs directly. However, they can invest in shared local facilities such as water treatment plants that benefit other local industries. Other examples include university programs or grants, special arrangements to make available data center resources or space for local partners. Data centers could include water treatment facilities, sending clean water to consumer households. And last but not least, the heat reuse discussed above could constitute a local benefit (depending on contract terms), replacing applications where natural gas is used today. The data center can thus help reduce carbon emissions, by avoiding the use of fossil fuels to generate heat, and (possibly) reduce heating costs for local citizens.
Future possibilities: Wind energy storage from a Groningen startup, and more
A local startup called Ocean Grazer (Groningen) has developed a novel energy storage solution at the bottom of the ocean. This could be used to handle varying offshore winds, temporarily storing energy during high winds / low demands, and releasing this energy at night (for example).
“Data center ien toene” (a data center in your garden, in the local dialect) represents a path towards a more sustainable future —one in which data centers of all sizes play a critical role.