Over the past decade, digitalisation has been expedited across all industries. This has enabled businesses to store, manage, and remotely retrieve large amounts of both critical and non-critical data. In addition, improvements in the precision of global navigation systems, expansion of trade and commerce, increased access to quality education, and other data-intensive procedures have contributed to an elevated quality of life and heightened productivity. Consequently, there is a crucial need for specialized infrastructure called data centres that can accommodate large amounts of data, employing servers and related equipment.
Data centres operate continuously and are supported by backup systems/generators as well as cooling systems for uninterrupted operations, thus being highly energy intensive. For instance, the biggest data centre in India located in Noida has an installed capacity that is almost half of the peak power demand of the state of Goa! Because 3/4 th of our current energy demands are met by coal and data centres are reliant on coal-powered plants for their primary energy requirements, these enormous ‘data banks’ contribute significantly towards global emissions. Considering the collective efforts worldwide to meet climate goals, it is essential to integrate data centres with green technologies to reduce or nullify their emissions.
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