Europe’s top data centre hubs produce 1.2 million homes-worth of emissions

New research from DataVita has revealed that relocating data centre infrastructure from existing hubs to emerging hotspots with greener energy networks could cut their associated CO₂ emissions by up to 91%.

The data centre and multi-cloud services provider, working with digital sustainability consultancy, Posetiv, analysed the ‘carbon intensity’ of Europe’s top five data centre markets: London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin¹.

Carbon intensity is a measure of the amount of CO₂ generated per kW/h of electricity used. Countries with more renewable sources in their energy mix tend to score low, while those relying on fossil fuels have a higher associated carbon intensity.

DataVita found that the electricity usage of the five cities’ data infrastructure amounted to a combined annual 6.3 million tonnes of CO₂ – equivalent to the carbon footprint of powering 1.2 million average UK households².

Transitioning all five cities’ collective data centre footprint to Scotland could cut total emissions by more than 80%. Frankfurt had the highest annual carbon footprint associated with data centre infrastructure, at 2.4 million tonnes of CO₂ – relocating its capacity to Scotland could reduce emissions by 91%.

Southern Scotland – including the country’s central belt between Edinburgh and Glasgow – had an average carbon intensity of 54.97g during 2022, according to National Grid data. This is around one-quarter of London’s 200.46g and nearly nine times lower than Frankfurt’s 473.62g.

Scotland is emerging as a data centre hub, with new facilities such as the country’s first ‘metro’ data centre in Glasgow opening this year at 177 Bothwell Street, a newly developed office building in the city centre.

Danny Quinn, MD of DataVita, says, “If organisations are serious about reducing the environmental impact of their IT services, they need to take a close look at where the critical infrastructure they use is located. Looking to a market like Scotland – where renewable sources account for a much larger portion of the energy mix – could cut related emissions by 84-91%.

“Data centres have made great strides optimising power usage effectiveness, water usage, waste heat recycling, and other efficiency measures, but sheer processing demand growth continues to outpace these improvements. The challenge will only increase as organisations increasingly rely on IT services and net zero targets draw nearer.

“There is no advantage in terms of latency and performance by using a data centre in these markets for the majority of IT workloads, particularly when it comes to London and Dublin. Any Scotland-based companies looking at large-scale cloud adoption should reflect on these metrics and consider whether potentially quadrupling their emissions, by choosing a provider in a one of the main markets, is a sensible strategy when delivering your services.”

¹Identified by JLL’s EMEA Data Centre report

²Data was taken from international grid power companies and electricitymaps