India's digital boom faces a power problem: Why green solutions for energy-hungry data centres are crucial

India's digital boom faces a power problem: Why green solutions for energy-hungry data centres are crucial

Row after row of racks stacked with computer hardware like servers and data storage devices packed into a large, air-conditioned hall. These data centres are the organs that run the networks that power everything from sending a WhatsApp message to initiating online payments to streaming sports matches. They store, process, and manage large amounts of data.

And they’ve seen massive interest in recent years because of the breakneck speed of technological advances, particularly Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), which requires much higher amounts of computational power. That has sparked a global race to build more data centres. And in India, too, data centres are being built at a frenetic pace.

“The average size of the data centres increased from the 20–30 MW range to 50–100 MW. And data centres that are able to support the high power requirement of AI are being built now,” says Vivek Dahiya, Managing Director and Head of the Data Centre Advisory Team, Asia Pacific at Cushman & Wakefield, the global commercial real estate services firm. He adds that the demand for data centres will double globally, driven by AI.

But there’s a catch here. These data centres consume massive amounts of electricity.

Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) bears this out. In 2022, data centres consumed 460 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity, or 2% of all global electricity usage. That is expected to double now, thanks to the increasing adoption of large language models (LLMs) for AI. The result is a likely increase in emissions from data centres that contribute around 2.5–3.7% of all global emissions, according to carbon intelligence start-up Climatiq.

It’s not a surprise, then, that countries are looking at ways to make these data centres green. India—which is still in the early stages of the boom, ranked 14th in the world according to research firm Statista with 163 facilities, compared to 5,381 in the US—is also looking at mitigation measures.

Bearing the Load

India’s data centre capacity is expected to exceed 1,300 MW by the end of 2024 from 880 MW as of June 2023, according to real estate consulting firm CBRE South Asia. In line with this, the industry’s power consumption is expected to account for 1.5–2% of the nation’s total power consumption.

And though the country is scaling up renewable energy capacity, most of the increase in demand is likely to be met through fossil fuel, which still accounts for 57% of India’s installed generation capacity as of February, per the Ministry of Power.

One option that companies have is to optimise the type and quantity of power consumed. That’s where the Green Open Access policy introduced by the government in 2022 comes in. It allows entities consuming over 1 MW, like data centres, to directly source green energy from private producers.

“Under these agreements, producers supply a specified amount of green energy to the National Grid on behalf of the data centre. When the data centre draws power from the grid, its utility provider bills only for the difference between the consumed and supplied green energy units,” says Sunil Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Yotta Data Services, a Hiranandani Group firm that builds data centres. “This allows any data centre, whether it’s a greenfield set-up or existing facility, to operate with a significantly reduced carbon footprint.” For instance, Yotta’s Navi Mumbai data centre obtains over 50% power from hydroelectric sources through this.

The market leader for cloud and data centres globally, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is investing in renewable energy capacity for its data centres in India. “Since 2022, all the electricity consumed by our data centres can be attributed to renewable energy, thanks to Amazon’s investment in over 50 renewable energy projects to date across India, with an estimated capacity of more than 1.1 gigawatts,” says Ken Haig, Head of Energy and Environment Policy for AWS, Asia Pacific & Japan. Once all 50 wind and solar projects are operational, they are expected to generate 3.58 million megawatt hours (MWh) of power. That’s the equivalent of powering more than 1.1 million homes in New Delhi each year—according to the think tank Centre for Policy Research, an electrified house in Delhi consumes about 250–270 kWh of electricity a month on average.

Keeping It Cool

One other way of reducing the substantial electricity needs of data centres is through the cooling system. Earlier, air cooling and hot and cold aisle layout—where alternating rows of racks are placed between aisles that receive cold air from ACs and ones that have hot air exhausts—were popular. But there’s been a shift towards more sustainable cooling solutions, such as water-based chillers. This has been recognised as a significant contribution towards reducing the power required by cooling systems.

“Currently, the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of Indian data centres is estimated to be between 1.5 and 1.6. By adopting cutting-edge cooling technologies like direct liquid cooling and immersion cooling, it’s possible to lower the PUE to between 1.1 and 1.2,” adds Gupta of Yotta. The ideal PUE is 1, and the reading is higher if efficiency is lower. He adds that achieving such reductions in PUE would not only signify a decrease in power consumption but also mark a significant step towards greener, more environmentally friendly data centre operations.

There are other solutions, too. CtrlS Datacenters Ltd, which began operations in 2007 and now operates 15 data centres across eight key markets, has undertaken initiatives such as direct-to-chip cooling (DTC) and liquid cooling that are expected to reduce energy consumption by up to 40%, says Dillip Guru, Senior Vice President, Renewable Energy, CtrlS Datacenters. In DTC, non-flammable liquid is brought into contact with the chip through tubes. The liquid absorbs the heat and evaporates into vapour, thus cooling the equipment.

Natural ventilation and daylight, too, are being explored to reduce consumption and create a healthier indoor environment, says Amit Agrawal, Chief Business Officer of Web Werks-Iron Mountain Data Center, which has six centres in India and 20 globally. “We also prioritise the use of energy-efficient equipment throughout our data centres, including servers, cooling systems, and power distribution units, to minimise energy waste and lower operational costs,” he adds.

Additionally, data centres can pack more density into a given space by using higher-density hard disc drives (HDDs). Khalid Wani, Senior Director of Sales for the India region at the American storage drive maker, Western Digital, explains that if a data centre uses a 22 TB (terabyte) HDD instead of an 8 TB or 10 TB HDD, then by simple math it would need about 75% to over 93% less space to store the same amount of data.

Strong Foundation

Of course, newer data centres—those that are being constructed now—can code sustainable solutions into the very design of the building. But there is a cost element attached. It varies based on factors like size, location, and technology, and incorporating green features could result in a 5–15% premium upfront, say experts.

“As India is fast emerging as a co-location market for data centres, and for constructing new data centres in India, there are typically two construction methods being used—horizontal construction with a pre-engineered building (PEB) structure and vertical construction with a concrete structure,” says Anshuman Magazine, Chairman & CEO, India, South-East Asia, Middle East & Africa, at real estate services firm CBRE. “The fit-out and MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) scope are executed in phases based on the data centre’s specific requirements. Modular construction techniques are gaining traction for data centres,” he adds. The PEB approach is seen to be better as it involves building data centre modules off-site and assembling them on-site, offering advantages such as faster deployment, scaleability, and cost-effectiveness.

But co-locating data centres face quite a few challenges. “These challenges include coordinating sustainability efforts across varied tenants, managing complex ownership structures, and addressing common operational problems,” says Amit Luthra, Managing Director—India, data centre solutions firm Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group .

But there are solutions out there in the market. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), as a part of its onboarding process, evaluates workloads and optimises the hardware and infrastructure accordingly to increase server utilisation, optimise server refresh cycles, and rightsize redundancy requirements. “Moreover, the metering capabilities delivered as part of HPE GreenLake services enable businesses to match their workloads and capacity closely to consumption, eliminating wasteful over-provisioning without incurring the risks of under-provisioning,” says Rajesh Dhar, Senior Director of the Industry Verticals at HPE India. The HPE GreenLake platform is a dashboard that offers insights into IT energy consumption, carbon emissions, and electricity costs.

“Over the long term, adopting green solutions may also help the data centre players optimise their operational costs and improve the RoI through solutions such as using green energy during peak hours, when non-renewable sources are expensive,” says Siddhartha Tipnis, Partner & Technology Sector leader at consultancy Deloitte in India.

Additionally, a lower carbon footprint enhances the brand image. Plus, there may be potential tax benefits or incentives available from government initiatives.

Thus, greening data centres can result in a win-win situation for businesses.

@nidhisingal

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