More cloud computing with less energy
Growing demand requires more efficient data centres
Cloud computing allows us to store data online and to access them from everywhere. This, although it is useful, is not without consequences for the environment. The German Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability assumes that the energy consumption of data centres worldwide will increase significantly to 90 terawatt hours per year by 2025. This equals approximately the total energy consumption of Austria in one year (74 terawatt hours). On behalf of the European Commission, the Environment Agency Austria and the German institute are currently analysing how the use of cloud computing will develop in the EU-28 over the next few years. The focus is on how energy efficiency can be integrated into the public procurement of cloud services. The aim is to develop recommendations for energy efficient and environmentally friendly cloud computing services in Europe.
Reckoning with green cloud computing
The trend, also in Austrian companies, is to move away from private servers into the public cloud. This is shown by the first results of a study which will be available in spring 2020. The need for cloud computing is expected to rise due to the increased use of big data in the health sector and the increased use of cloud services in public administration. Smart buildings and autonomous driving will further increase this trend. The analysis carried out by the Environment Agency Austria and the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability shows that the range of environmentally friendly digital services is still expandable. The European Code of Conduct for data centres sets criteria for sustainable public procurement. However, these criteria apply only to hardware and have up to now been insufficiently implemented in the Member States.
Best practice examples collected and analysed for the study show us already today what tomorrow’s energy efficient cloud computing technologies could look like. Public and private initiatives across Europe, for example, are using more efficient cooling systems, feeding surplus heat from servers into the district heating network, building data centres in naturally cool regions or supplying them with renewable energies.
Recommendations for public procurement
The experts from the Environment Agency Austria and the German Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability presented the first results of the Austrian-German study at a workshop in Brussels on 4th December, where the resulting recommendations for the public procurement of cloud computing services were discussed and finalised by representatives from the European Commission, large IT groups and smaller IT companies.
