The region’s data centres are transforming, being driven by innovative sustainability initiatives. From harnessing renewable energy in Iceland, to new developments in market-leading Frankfurt, as well as the Czech Republic positioning itself as an up-and-coming sustainable powerhouse.
Quid pro grow in Iceland
Combining Iceland’s natural renewable energy sources with carbon offsetting ensures data centre operations are on the road to becoming truly sustainable. Verne, a provider of sustainable data centre solutions for high intensity computing, and VAXA, a sustainable biotech food and nutrition producer, recently announced a partnership enabling Verne to offset its residual carbon emissions in Iceland. This furthers its long-term sustainability goals and commitment to combatting greenwashing in the data centre industry.
Although Verne’s infrastructure in the region is powered by 100% renewable energy, it still has a small carbon footprint. In 2021, it powered data centre infrastructure and compute that was equivalent to over 10,000 homes’ electricity usage for the year, generating a carbon footprint of 574 tCO2e – equivalent to 70 homes’ annual energy usage.
As part of the company’s efforts to reduce the environmental impact of its operations even further, Verne will work with VAXA to offset its residual Scope 1, 2 and 3 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and provide customers with the world’s most sustainable digital infrastructure.
VAXA is powering the circular economy in Iceland, with a focus on environmentally friendly, sustainable practices that, like Verne’s own facilities, utilise the country’s geothermal power.
The technology platform from VAXA leverages the clean, natural outputs of a geothermal plant to grow microalgae indoors, completely independent of the weather conditions. These microalgae, a type known as spirulina, is a highly sustainable food product with a nutritional profile similar to beef.
“We are incredibly excited to be partnering with VAXA, a highly innovative company that shares our own values and commitment to sustainability and the circular economy,” said Dominic Ward, CEO, Verne. “As the only country powered by 100% renewable energy resources, Iceland is the most sustainable location on earth for data centres. But even still, operations produce emissions.
“The data centre industry has a responsibility to be transparent when it comes to sustainability reporting and show what it’s doing to minimise its impact on the planet; that’s why we publish our emissions data and have decided to partner with VAXA, a true sustainability pioneer, to offset our carbon emissions in Iceland,” added Ward.
Fresh blood in Frankfurt
Tishman Speyer, one of the world’s leading international developers, owners, operators and asset managers of prime real estate, announced the signing of a definitive agreement with SAMSON AG to acquire a 75,000 square meter prime location in Frankfurt for the development of a major new sustainable data centre facility and urban industrial and logistics hub.
This is Tishman Speyer’s first industrial development in Europe, building on the strength of its portfolio in the US. The all-new mixed-use campus will be located close to both the city’s Central Business District and to one of Frankfurt’s largest data centre clusters.
Tishman Speyer has also signed an agreement with Mainova WebHouse GmbH, a subsidiary of the energy supplier, Mainova AG, and an experienced data centre developer and operator, focused on the Frankfurt market, under which Mainova WebHouse has an option to become the firm’s joint venture partner in this important project.
Additionally, it has previously identified data centres as one of the most attractive sectors for the ongoing diversification of its business portfolio and securing this rare opportunity in Frankfurt – home to one of the world’s busiest Internet Exchange Points, DE-CIX – is its first major move into the sector.
The proposed data centre campus comprises an initial 32MW of IT-load, with an eventual full build-out capacity of up to 70MW of IT-load in this fast-growing market where there continues to be high demand from hyperscaler clients for new capacity, particularly for centrally located sites.
This prime location – situated in the Frankfurt Osthafen area – has been acquired from SAMSON, a leading global supplier of valves, actuators and intelligent flow control systems, which is in the process of moving its headquarters and operations to a new location in Offenbach.
“The successful outcome of our discussions with SAMSON for the future of this exceptional site opens the way for this major new development of a highly sustainable data centre and light industrial campus,” said Florian Reiff, Managing Director, Tishman Speyer Germany. “I’d like to thank our partners at Mainova WebHouse and SAMSON for sharing our vision for this important project in a prime urban setting in support of Frankfurt’s continued vibrancy.”
Oliver Schiebel, CEO, Mainova WebHouse, added: “We are looking forward to this joint opportunity of bringing sustainable data centres to a location where they are needed most. Our most sustainable design which already exceeds all the requirements of the latest renewable energy act will be taken to the next level at this location, delivering significant waste heat capacity to Mainova’s district heating grid, for the people and businesses in the east of Frankfurt to benefit from carbon neutral district heat.”
Propelling Prague’s market
Seznam.cz, a Czech Internet operator and data centre provider, has opened its third data centre in Prague, adding to its existing data centre in Horní Počernice.
The implementation took exactly one year and was carried out in co-operation with Metrostav and general contractors, Altron.
While Seznam.cz has three data centres – Osaka, Nagoya and Kokura – with three data halls, Osaka is leased from O2. In total, up to 6MW of power is planned for the IT equipment at the sites owned.
“Although Kokura 3 is part of the original data centre, it is structurally and technologically a separate unit,” said Vlastimil Pečínka, Technical Director of Seznam.cz. “We have been able to introduce several innovations here that are not present in Nagoya, for example, which is only a year old. A significant innovation is that we are leaving out the UPS and batteries on one power branch. Thus, we will fully rely on the redundancy of power supplies in IT technology.”
This change will reduce investment and operating costs and will rely more on its own multi-source power supply. The facility also includes a water treatment plant similar to the Nagoya data centre, which stores rainwater for cooling.
Moving towards greater sustainability and with achieving the same PUE levels of the Nagoya data centre in mind, the warm air extraction system has been modified and further innovations have been made in the cold air distribution system.
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