Data centres lean on green power as net connectivity in India spikes

Green is crucial as data centres are energy guzzlers, with the largest of them said to require more than 100 Mw of capacity, enough to power 80,000 US households

As the number of internet connected devices grows in the country and as more and more services are made available on the internet, the need for building digital infrastructure is becoming crucial. And the foundation of this digital infrastructure is reliable data centres.

In the recent past, data centres have managed to grab the attention of both private players and the government, with the sector seeing exponential growth in India. According to Knight Frank’s Q3 2021 Data Center report, the Indian data centre market currently houses an estimated 445 Mw of critical IT capacity, and with a significant addition of about 290 Mw in 2022, the total count will scale up to 735 Mw by end of next year.

Mumbai houses approximately 193 Mw of India’s current 445 Mw data centre capacity. The city's total capacity is estimated at 1,006 Mw, with 258 Mw under construction and 555 Mw under various stages of planning.

Recently Tech giant Microsoft unveiled its fourth data centre in India. The DC at Telangana, Hyderabad will be one of the largest in India and will be operational by 2025. The company is investing over Rs 15,000 crore over 15 years.

As India gets on building its data centre capabilities, it is imperative that it is supported with green energy.

Why? Because data centres are guzzlers of energy. It has been estimated that the largest data centres require more than 100 megawatts (Mw) of power capacity—enough to power around 80,000 US households. The IT and cooling demands of a data centre are the two largest components of energy consumption. It is no wonder then that these facilities have been in the spotlight in recent years, said the Knight Frank report.

In the recent past players such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft among others who own and operate huge data centres have been trying to reduce their carbon footprint by using renewable energy.

Experts believe that India which has just about started its data centre journey should focus on this as well. In the west where data centre growth has been exponential, it is the companies who are taking steps to make data centres green, in India, while the country awaits for a central policy on data centres, the state government have taken some lead.

According to a JLL report, Tamil Nadu as a State has a diversified electricity generation portfolio with an installed capacity of 31,894 Mw which includes 50 per cent of renewable energy. The State has installed solar power capacity of 3,974 Mw, while installed wind power capacity is 8,507 Mw and rest from other renewable sources.

Concentrated efforts are being taken by the government and private sector to increase the renewable power capacity. According to an Icra report, India’s renewable energy generation capacity addition in FY23 would be about 16 gigawatts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to increase the country’s non-fossil fuel power generation capacity to 500 Gw and meet half its energy requirements from renewable sources by the end of this decade. The Central Electricity Authority estimates India’s power requirement to rise to 817 Gw by 2030.

The Centre has mandated that 25 per cent of the power supplied by a state utility provider should be green. So even if a data centre sources a certain percentage of its needs from a state utility, it automatically benefits from green power as 25 per cent of that energy is already green.

Industry players said that the concept of green DCs has moved from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have’. While the industry itself is increasingly focusing on delivering energy-efficient and sustainable solutions, a growing awareness among the customer is also playing a major role in this industry-wide shift. For instance, several customers have clauses into contracts which mandate data centre companies to commit to a reduction in their overall carbon footprint.

Sunil Gupta, co-founder and CEO, Yotta Infrastructure shares that green and sustainable practices are a key parameter in the process of evaluating a data centre.

“The growing clamour for green data centres has prompted several operators to leverage artificial intelligence-based systems. As cooling consumes about 25 per cent of the total energy in data centres, new AI-driven smart systems are configured to optimise power usage and improve airflow. This not only optimises power consumption, but also reduces costs and improves the overall efficiency of the data centre,” he explained.

Gupta also added that is some cases hyper scalers also insert clauses into contracts which stipulate that although they do not expect green power delivery immediately, down the line, they (the hyperscalers) will be permitted to bring their green power, or they will be able to facilitate green power usage via the data centre as the contractor.

When asked how green are Yotta’s data centres Gupta elaborated that the company’s first data centre building at the Yotta Data Center Park in Navi Mumbai, Yotta NM1, has a power capacity of 50 Mw. It has the lowest PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.4; the facility is power efficient and houses captive power distribution infrastructure. “In addition, we are commissioning our solar power plant and natural gas-based power generation plant adjacent to the data centre for green energy. This makes the facility use green and natural sources of power,” said Gupta.

Yotta’s data centre park in Noida, which will eventually consist of six interconnected data centre buildings offering 30,000 racks needing more than 250 Mw of power, they have ensured power via redundant 220 KV express feeders and an on-site substation with an option of 100 per cent green energy to customers.

Other than the Noida and Mumbai centres, Yotta is also ramping up its footprint in other states. The company has planned to deliver 1,030 Mw capacity across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Delhi-NCR by 2027.

NTT, the world’s third largest data centre operator has also ramped up its green energy capability. The company is setting up renewable energy plants across the country. It has already set up 62.5 Mw plant in Maharashtra, 20 Mw Karnataka and they are looking to augment this capability by another 100 Mw by setting up plant in Maharashtra.

CtrlS is yet another data centre player that is building all its upcoming data centres to be powered by renewable energy. “CtrlS is adopting solar energy in a big way. It has built its hyperscale data centre in Mumbai--the country’s largest solar plant in the façade with 1.3 Mw installed capacity generating 1.8 million units of power per year. It helps in offsetting CO2 emissions by 620 tonnes/year. We are in the process of building a 500-acre solar plant generating solar power ranging between 300 and 500 Mw and plan to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and run 85 per cent of our power requirements through renewable energy,” said B S Rao, VP, CtrlS Datacenter.

In terms of expansion plans CtrlS is building 5 million sq feet of rated-4 hyperscale data centres in India--two million sq ft in Mumbai, two million sq ft in Hyderabad and another one million sq ft in Chennai. CtrlS is building 500 edge data centres across tier-2 and tier-3 cities in a phased manner. 

Globally all major data centre players have taken step to move to use of green energy. For instance, Microsoft has globally committed to power its data centres by 2025 with 100 per cent additional, new renewable energy generation that matches the company’s electric consumptions on an annual basis.

Google, for instance, has stated that by 2030 they will achieve net zero emissions across all its operations and value chain. Additionally, it aims to become the first major company to run on carbon-free energy 24 hours a day.