The presence of the data center has supported business, the internet, social media, and other digital things. With so many servers installed in the data center, this consumes a lot of electricity. This is one of the reasons why energy data centers cause carbon (CO2) emissions.
The ravages of climate change have become a reality today. Climate change is extreme all over the world. The cause is carbon emissions.
Let’s take a deeper look at why energy data centers generate carbon emissions.
Data Center Energy Causing Spike in Carbon Emissions
Data centers are the backbone of today’s world community. On the other hand, data on carbon emissions is about 3% of the world’s carbon emissions.
Globally, data center energy absorbs 1-2% of the total energy used daily. To store 1 GB of data, the data center requires 7 kWh of electricity.
Currently, the world’s data center energy consumption has reached 400 TWh which produces carbon gas emissions of 2.5% to 3.7% of the world’s total carbon emissions (36.3 billion tons). This means the data center’s carbon footprint will reach 13,430,000,000 in 2021.
The number continues to increase as digital changes around the world. Especially during the pandemic which causes a shift in people’s behavior in the world more towards the digital realm.
The amount of carbon emissions produced by industrial data centers in the world is quite alarming, therefore several countries including the European Union Commission have implemented regulations to reduce CO2. This achievement is quite optimistic, namely zero pollutants in 2050.
Such as data centers in Singapore, China, and India, which still use a lot of electricity from generators that use new diesel and coal. This has led to carbon emissions.
As countries in Asia have experienced internet user penetration, the energy demand for data centers will increase in the future. Of course, this is proof that energy data centers cause carbon emissions.
From these conditions, if there is no change or innovation in the use of energy in the data center, carbon emissions will continue to soar. Therefore, it is time for traditional data centers to upgrade, both in the use of energy and technology to be more environmentally friendly.
Solutions to Reduce Data Center Carbon Footprint
Data center energy causes a fairly serious spike in carbon emissions. Fortunately, European countries, have started to use clean energy such as gas and geothermal. Several countries in America have used hydrogen for the main energy supply in their data centers.
Several giant data centers have also started conducting experiments using new renewable energy such as solar energy and wind turbines. Some other data centers have utilized the kinetic energy of sea waves.
All these innovations bring optimism about reducing the data center’s carbon footprint. However, to reduce carbon emissions in the data center, it is not enough just to use energy. Energy consumption efficiency is another important part of reducing data center carbon emissions.
Some of the elements that consume the most energy in the data center are servers and data center cooling systems. Several energy-efficient servers and cooling system technologies are available, the problem is whether the traditional data center will adopt the latest technology or not.
Data Center Servers and Cooling System Must Be More Efficient
The latest technology for servers with virtualization systems can reduce the use of the number of server units needed in the data center. With virtualization, all servers can be consolidated, meaning that servers that are passive or not in use can be turned off. Of course, this can be a solution in saving energy consumption in the data center so that data center carbon emissions can continue to be reduced.
The data center must be able to run continuously without stopping 24/7. All of these activities are supported by electronic devices such as servers, network hubs, and so on.
Electronic devices will become hot when used continuously and this can cause damage. When the data center device is damaged, an outage will occur which causes economic losses for the businesses involved in it. Chaos can also occur when there is a long period of downtime.
Therefore, an important thing in the data center is the cooling system. Of course, this also requires a lot of electricity consumption. Some of the latest innovations such as hot-aisle and cold-aisle management are starting to be widely used in data centers.
Natural cooling systems in data centers can reduce energy consumption by between 30% and 40%. Other equipment in the data center must also be upgraded to high-efficiency equipment.
Current Challenges in Reducing Data Center Carbon Emission Surge
As we all know, gas prices have skyrocketed in Europe. This brings fears of uncertainty in thousands of data centers in the European Union. The problem is, that gas is the easiest thing to reduce the spike in data center carbon emissions.
For example, data centers in Germany could use electricity from coal power plants again. The choice is between outage and carbon emission which causes a bad impact on the environment.
New renewable energy innovation is still not sufficient to supply electricity for data centers. Data center relocation may be a solution to the gas increase in Europe. Data center relocation also requires time and cross-country cooperation in overcoming global warming.
Fortunately, at the G20 Summit yesterday in Bali, there was an agreement between countries to reduce carbon emissions, one of which was in the data center industry. One of these agreements includes supporting regulations and policies for environmentally friendly data center investments. This can be a consideration for data center provider companies in responding to these challenges.
Conclusion:
Climate change is no longer the jargon of world leaders. The change in advertising has become more and more noticeable in recent times. One of the main causes of the change in advertising is carbon emissions.
Data Center energy causes a spike in carbon emissions as the use of the internet and digital applications increases worldwide. What we have to anticipate is not to let the data center industry cause a change in climate in the years to come.
This does require a commitment for all data center providers in the world to reduce carbon emissions. An environmentally friendly data center must be a priority for leaders in data center provider companies.
Of course, we all don’t want the environment to be damaged even more because of technological advances. Therefore, some of the challenges that exist in reducing data center carbon emissions require the cooperation of all parties.
We must stop using fossil fuels for data centers. Data centers must switch to using clean or pollutant-free energy sources. Clean energy can be in the form of gas, geothermal, nuclear, hydrogen, and so on.
Keep up with the article on GreenDC.org to get the latest information about green data centers that can increase efficiency while reducing the impact of carbon emissions.