Datacenters in Ireland draw more power than all rural homes put together
- Reference: 1651669213
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/05/04/datacenters_in_ireland_energy_draw/
- Source link:
[1]
Aerial view of the town of Cashel in Tipperary, Ireland. population 4,422 according to a 2016 census
The National Planning Framework, published in 2018 by the Irish government, defines rural as all areas outside towns with a [2]population of less than 10,000 [PDF]. Ireland has a large rural population, with 1.8 million people (36.35 percent) who live in rural areas, well above the [3]EU average of 27.3 percent .
[4]TikTok to splurge €420m on Ireland data centre to get Euro-data into Europe by 2022
[5]Amazon buys big shed for Dublin data centre
[6]Hell, high water, and ice: Facebook's Dublin data center choices
[7]European Commission intervenes in Microsoft Irish data centre spat
As reported by The Irish Times, the [8]latest figures from the CSO show that the percentage of metered electricity consumed by datacenters in Ireland has risen from 5 percent in 2015 to 14 percent during 2021. This compares with 12 percent for the total power consumed by rural residential consumers during the same year, although still less than the figure for residents in urban areas, who accounted for 21 percent of electricity consumed.
The CSO figures indicate that the total metered electricity consumption in Ireland increased by 16 percent, or 3,906 gigawatt hours, between 2015 and 2021, while the quarterly metered electricity consumption by datacenters alone has risen steadily from 290 gigawatt hours in the first quarter of 2015 to 1,058 gigawatt hours in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the CSO points out that the increase in consumption was driven by a combination of existing datacenters consuming more electricity as well as new datacenters being added to the grid. However, it also claimed that most of the metered electricity consumption was accounted for by just a small number of datacenters.
New bit barns
There are now estimated to be about 70 datacenters in Ireland, operated by internet giants such as [9]Amazon , [10]Facebook and Google, and not forgetting [11]Microsoft , which opened its first datacenter outside of the US near to Dublin in 2009.
According to Irish publication The Journal, 10 new datacenters were made operational since 2020 alone, with €7 billion ($7.4 billion) spent on building these facilities in the previous decade and another €7 billion ($7.4 billion) likely to be spent on adding more between now and 2026.
Ireland warned it could face 'rolling blackouts' if it doesn't address data centres' demand for electricity [12]READ MORE
Microsoft is understood to have been granted permission to build two more datacenters at Dublin’s Grange Castle Business Park, while Amazon last year applied for permission to build two more of its own facilities close to the Irish capital.
Concerns were expressed in the past about the amount of energy consumed by datacenters, but according to [13]figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA) , while datacenters account for approximately 1 percent of global electricity use, improvements in energy efficiency mean that their global energy consumption has only increased 10 percent over the past decade despite workloads having grown by 9.4 times over the same period.
However, tech firms have committed to measures to make IT infrastructure more energy efficient in future. For example, AMD this week gave a progress report on its [14]30x25 plans to deliver a 30-fold increase in energy efficiency across its high-performance compute (HPC) platforms by 2025, which would mean reducing the power required by 97 percent compared with 2020 levels. ®
[15]
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/05/04/shutterstock_1075977164.jpg
[2] https://www.oecd.org/regional/Rural-WellBeing-Ireland.pdf
[3] https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-urli/urbanandrurallifeinireland2019/introduction/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/tiktok_ireland_data_centre/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2011/02/10/amazon_dublin_data_centre_expansion/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2016/01/28/location_location_location/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2017/12/07/commission_intervenes_in_microsoft_irish_data_centre_spat/
[8] https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-dcmec/datacentresmeteredelectricityconsumption2021/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2011/02/10/amazon_dublin_data_centre_expansion/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2016/01/28/location_location_location/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2017/12/07/commission_intervenes_in_microsoft_irish_data_centre_spat/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/11/ireland_data_cnetre_electricity/
[13] https://www.iea.org/reports/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/04/amd_power_goal/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YnKjKhhFrJSgAEXd93Me7QAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
" I wonder if those that data-centres would keep the homeless population warm? "
Why would they want to do that? The homeless are happy sleeping in the doorways of flats owned by Google who keep them permanently empty.
> Datacenters in Ireland draw more power than all rural homes put together
So? Would it be cheaper/use less power/cause less media hysteria/whaterver if the dataprocessing were shipped back on-prem?
It would be a massive reduction for Ireland, given that so much of the DC equipment located in Ireland is providing services for EU and global customers.
The uptick in demand is one of the knock-on factors of Brexit. EU customers want their data-processing to be carried out within the EU. Most of the transatlantic fiber makes landfall in the British Isles, but with the UK now outside the EU, Ireland has become a preferred location, despite its thorny planning process.
The usual suspects will say this is all about tax rates of course, but datacenters are cost-centres, and their location has nothing to do with where profits are booked. Amazon, for instance, located is first AWS Europe region in Dublin, but it has no business operations in Ireland at all: even its shop website is a redirect to amazon.co.uk. Amazon’s European operations are run by a Luxembourg company.
Tax Haven
Nuff said.
Mine's the one with the four leaf clover in one pocket and the roll of bank notes in the other.
The best little country in the world to do business
Well, Ireland is the best little country in the world to do business.
We'll foot the bill of your unsecured loans should the world economy collapse, fight the EU Commission on your behalf, build more windmills in the sea so that ye can brag to your addicts that they are green and so on. And still the US multinationals do more for Irish prosperity than German & Dutch banks.
Ah, Ireland, ye dumped one waning superpower one hundred years ago only to jump into bed with another 50 years ago. A nation once again, wah?
I wonder if those that data-centres would keep the homeless population warm?