back to article European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice

European datacenter operators are finding it harder to secure reliable, cost-effective power, according to a report by British electricity biz Aggreko has asserted. The vendor conducted a survey [PDF] of 700 datacenter professionals across seven countries and found that a combination of rising energy prices, supply chain …

  1. Potemkine! Silver badge

    There is a lot a progress to be made in thermal management. A lot of energy is required to evacuate energy. There's something wrong here.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Solarthermic adsorbtion is a good way to go for data centres.

    2. John H Woods Silver badge

      Immersion cooling ...

      ... will, in my opinion, eventually become a game changer.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Immersion cooling ...

        A kilowatt of heat is still a kilowatt of heat, all liquid immersion cooling does is wick it away more efficiently.

        1. Gurhurk

          Re: Immersion cooling ...

          Not quite, using immersion cooling means taking away fans from servers, reducing IT load by 8-20%, so it's more efficient before you start cooling...

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: Immersion cooling ...

            > using immersion cooling means taking away fans from servers...

            Covered by the phrase: "wick it away more efficiently."

        2. John H Woods Silver badge

          Re: Immersion cooling ...

          Quite apart from the thermal efficiency savings, there are building management savings in both aircon and footprint.

          Furthermore, a small amount of hot water inside the office has a lot more re-use potential than a large amount of hot air outside a remote bitbarn. Many offices already have electric boilers in the 50 to 500kW range, imagine if one could offset that with waste heat from the servers.

    3. Lomskij

      Depends on geography unfortunately. If you live somewhere cold and can use free-cooling chillers, or have access to lots of water for evaporative cooling, or even dump your heat into nearby river, it won't require a lot of energy. Combine it with immersion cooling and closed water loop, and your cooling is pretty much free.

      However, if you live somewhere hot, with no water, then yeah, it'll cost you a lot...

  2. devin3782

    Why haven't they solar panelled the roof? i mean it wouldn't run the servers but it'd run lighting and cooling systems, trickle charge their battery backup systems. We have so much roof space going unused seems a shame not to utilise it.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Most large data centres do: it's been economical to include them in the build for at least a decade.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Very few of the barns that are being built around me have roof mounted solar panels.

        A planning proposal out for consultation has a "solar park" aka business park and a few acres of open fields covered in solar panels to provide the electricity for the business park. I.e. there is no intention of actually utilising the roofs etc. of the business park for the collection of electricity.

        1. blackcat Silver badge

          Which is super dumb as in the summer the panels help keep the buildings cooler. However from a 'who owns the roof' and 'who looks after the panels' aspect I can sort of understand it. Having dealt with commercial landlords you end up wanting to stab yourself in the face with a screwdriver to make the pain go away.

    2. katrinab Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Especially cooling. If the sun isn't shining, then you probably don't need so much cooling, so that could work quite well.

  3. jmch Silver badge

    Standalone vs Integrated

    Too many datacenters are basically plumped in what is basically an industrial estate where they can get cheap floor space and easy access to industrial-scale power. They then spend power (and money) to pump excess heat out into the air, while the houses in nearby villages have to burn gas in their boilers to keep warm!!! (Not only datacenters, by the way, but pretty much any large industrial facility).

    Too many of our industries and towns are still built on an antiquated and very inefficient model. Instead of pumping excess industrial heat into homes, which saves both energy and money. We know it can be done because many sites already do it. New builds have to have mandatory standards for efficient energy re-use

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Standalone vs Integrated

      The problem in the UK is that when datacentres need most cooling, homes aren't running their central heating. Because it's summer and 30°C outside. In the winter it would be very useful, but to cooling capacity still has to be built for the summer conditions.

      Public swimming pools, lakes, etc could be incorporated though. Also saunas and hot tubs. You still need to shift the heat, but at least you derive some use from it (and probably entry fees as well)

      1. NeilPost Silver badge

        Re: Standalone vs Integrated

        Public swimming pools and Conservative Government austerity is a problem here.

        Plus any public swimming pools left tend not to be on industrial parks where DC sheds are being built.

        1. Peter2 Silver badge

          Re: Standalone vs Integrated

          Public swimming pools and Conservative Government austerity is a problem here.

          It is?

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64939558

          It doesn't appear to be stopping them. In fact, that councils run leisure centres as arms length businesses would make this rather easier.

          The biggest problem there appears to be that a swimming pool is good for heating one half a rack, for half the year. (as presumably it doesn't want heating by +10 degrees of ambient during summer)

          Mind you, that does leave the possibility of building bigger and deeper public swimming pools for additional cooling capacity and attaching a dozen sauna rooms; people pay good money for the sort of heat a server room gets to in 15 minutes when the A/C melts down.

    2. Lomskij

      Re: Standalone vs Integrated

      You make it sound so easy... Unfortunately converting the low quality heat that DCs are outputting into something that is useful for district heating requires massive investments - who's going to pay for that? Councils in the UK with no cash? DC owners with zero ROI on this "investment"?

      1. jmch Silver badge

        Re: Standalone vs Integrated

        "Unfortunately converting the low quality heat that DCs are outputting into something that is useful for district heating requires massive investments"

        True, and it's a lot more expensive / inefficient to retrofit. But building it into new designs could be done much more cheaply. Still more expensive than just doing it the old way of course, and it's not always going to work depending on geography and many other factors. Nevertheless should be explored because every little helps, and long-term incremental gains build up (of course that requires planning and vision of how a town is going to be 50-100 years in the future and most localities and businesses can't see beyond the next election cycle or financial year)

      2. katrinab Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Standalone vs Integrated

        We are supposed to be switching all our heating over to heat pumps. A heat pump that takes its heat from the hot aisle of a data centre is going to work a lot better than one that takes it from the outside air surely?

    3. Stork Silver badge

      Re: Standalone vs Integrated

      Check out Kalundborg in Denmark

    4. Korev Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Standalone vs Integrated

      I was on a tour of a Swiss university's new datacentre. One of the other visitors asked why they were doing with the heat, the host geek said that they wanted to do that, but the architects asked if they could say for sure that the systems in there would be similar in 20-30 years or so and of course the answer was no and the city is a bit less cold in winter...

  4. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Smells like bullshit

    Grid shortcomings are common throughout Europe…

    That is total bollocks, the European grid is significantly more resilient and reliable than the US one. In fact there's something fishy about this whole report: DSR is common in France but almost unheard of in Germany and doesn't make sense for data centres that have fairly constant demand.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Smells like bullshit

      It is not varying demand on the data centre side, it is varying grid demand. Basically if the grid is short of capacity the data centre runs its UPS "backwards" to help out.

    2. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Smells like bullshit

      But if there's a grid requirement to shed some load, the datacentre could easily say "OK, we'll run 3° warmer for the next 15 minutes" - you don't have to move compute to other centres for transient requirements like that.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Smells like bullshit

        For fifteen minutes it wouldn't be worth it, the network should handle such swings easily. The French model includes shutting power off for several hours, which can be fine in many agricultural situations.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Smells like bullshit

      Depends on definition of shortcomings.

      Euro (and the UK) networks are built and operated with high standards of redundancy built in. This means that transfer capacities from region to region are "limited" not by the capability of the equipment, but rather by the capability of the network to continue operating uninterrupted in event of one or more faults. Increasing capacity against that backdrop and planning for redundancy as well is relatively expensive. It's exacerbated by land being heavily populated and therefore expensive throughout in Western Europe.

      US networks and customer reliability expectations are much lower; and the network tends to be run much closer to the bleeding edge. From point of view of maximum delivery for minimum operational cost this is good, but it comes at a price of significantly lower reliability and more capital expenditure to replace assets whose lifetimes are strongly influenced by how ragged you run them.

      Both options are viable ways to run networks as have been amply proven for decades, with different shortcomings. Which one do you want?

      An interesting point to note is that US businesses are much more likely to install their own generation capabilities to mitigate the low network reliability; so what you save in network costs are sucked up by installing diesels instead. And a reliable network benefits everyone, as opposed to a diesel benefitting only the end point user.

      A/C because, it's one of your resident El Reg transmission engineers again.

      1. Korev Silver badge

        Re: Smells like bullshit

        > An interesting point to note is that US businesses are much more likely to install their own generation capabilities to mitigate the low network reliability

        My American colleagues all seem to have generators at home to protect against power cuts. I've never met anyone in Europe who's done this.

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: Smells like bullshit

          I know a few people in France with USPs because of the summer storms.

          The US market can be really shitty: lots of local monopolies with no incentive to improve the network: Enron but also more recently Edison in CA. But distance is also a factor: Europe is much more densely populated which makes infrastructure cheaper to install. Exceptions in Scandinavia, of course.

    4. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

      Re: Smells like bullshit

      Well, this is all "according to a report by British electricity biz Aggreko". What do Aggreko do? Basically they provide electricity via generators etc. From their website:

      "We’re the leading provider of mobile power solutions, working around the clock to giving our customers the power, heating and cooling they need."

      So, read this whole article with a big pinch of salt. There might be a certain amount of marketing and self promotion contained therein.

  5. t245t Silver badge
    Holmes

    European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice

    Has Putin blowing up his own gas pipeline got anything to do with this lack of cheap reliable energy /s

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice

      For most of the time: no. Gas is used for much electricity but it is used for marginal production, because it's the most flexible. This, combined with the merit order principle, drove the price spikes on the spot market last year. But, as consumers with fairly constant demands, data centres shouldn't really be buying from the spot market. In fact, the turmoil did some good in removing a few under capitalised "providers" from the market, similar in a way to the banks with the wrong mix of long-term assets and short-term liabilities.

      1. katrinab Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice

        Yes, but electricity is priced at the margins.

        Every half hour, they have an auction for the amount of electricity needed.

        Power generators submit their bids for price and amount of electricity they are able to supply.

        These are sorted in ascending order of price, and they go down the list until they have enough bids to cover the requirements.

        Whatever the price of the most expensive successful bid is, that is the price everyone gets.

        1. Binraider Silver badge

          Re: European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice

          A point missed by far too many. We all effectively pay gas prices for energy being generated much more cheaply by alternative means. Good business to be in, being a windmill. Get the subsidy PLUS the generation revenue.

          Meanwhile, inflation sat above 10%... (As ever, not anti-renewable, but anti-Tory market mechanics that are basically legalised theft)

    2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice

      Has Putin blowing up his own gas pipeline got anything to do with this lack of cheap reliable energy /s

      Nope, but whoever Putin blows is his business. Unless it's throwing money at useful idiots to campaign against fraccing and promote demand for cheap Russian gas. The sad truth is the reason we don't have cheap, reliable energy is because it's government policy not to. See also-

      https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/04/18/govt-quietly-drops-promises-of-cheap-renewable-energy/#more-63629

      Potential reforms to Contracts for Difference could mean applicants would be rewarded for including wider benefits their projects could bring when submitting price bids to government for their low-carbon electricity

      these ‘non-price factors’ could include supply chain sustainability, addressing skills gaps and innovation, help drive investment in the sector and boost country’s energy security

      today’s step builds plans to create a more secure energy future and grow our economy, by supporting thriving green industries and high quality jobs

      ...The government is now seeking evidence and views about reviewing applications not just on their ability to deliver low-cost renewable energy deployment, but also based on how much a renewable energy project contributes to the wider health of the renewable energy industry.

      CfDs were supposed to act as price support mechanisms for the 'renewables' scumbags and set a minimum price for the electricity they generate. Currently that's a theoretical capacity of around 26GW. Reality is, of course, ever since the UK population, business or consumers have been forced to 'invest' in 'renewables', electricity prices have risen to the point where they're among the most expensive in the world. Some recent CfD auctions were for <£100/MWh, and of course were hailed as a triumph of sound fiscal prudence, eg the claim the per unit (MWh) price of offshore wind dropping by almost 70% between the first auction in 2015 and the latest in 2022.

      Funnily enough, I.. don't seem to have noticed any reduction in my electricity costs between 2015 and 2022. In fact they've more than tripled. This is obviously because the 'renewables' scumbags are massive users of natural gas. Or as Paul Homewood explains-

      It is now beyond clear that offshore wind farms and others awarded CfDs at ultra low prices in the last round of auctions have no intention of taking up their contracts, instead preferring to opt for much higher market prices. Indeed they would soon go bankrupt under their contract prices, which are simply not economically viable.

      Hence the special pleading and lobbying to raise CfD prices. And rather than basing those just on what consumers want, ie the lowest per MWh price, they want to pad the CfD rate with spurious crap that "contributes to the wider health of the renewable energy industry". By "health", the scumbags of course mean "profits".

      1. blackcat Silver badge

        Re: European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice

        There is something pretty rotten in the renewables market. Money is being poured into the industry while politicians make claims that renewable electricity is 9x cheaper than gas/nuclear BUT we have situations like this where the generators are not selling at the prices specified in the CfD and Siemens has posted a loss of nearly $1bn from their wind turbine division.

        The high gas prices have meant that the renewables generation companies can absolutely rake in the profits and the simple fact that we allow them to bail on their CfD is crazy.

        UK Gov needs to fix the energy pricing market ASAP.

  6. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Whodathunkit?

    Modern life requires reliable consistent energy supplies.

    If you legislate against those supplies, you get power cuts.

  7. codejunky Silver badge

    No Way!!!

    I dont believe it. How can Europe be having supply issues after blowing huge amounts on power generating infrastructure? Wont those monuments to the sky god not work? Maybe we need to sacrifice a few people by letting them freeze in the dark.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: No Way!!!

      The broken record is back!

      The article doesn't mention supply issues at all. Price, yes and, if memory serves, the UK had some of the most expensive energy partly due to the lack of such infrastructure.

      1. blackcat Silver badge

        Re: No Way!!!

        It is in the title of the article:

        "European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice"

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: No Way!!!

          The point is cheap, reliable. European networks are very reliable but this comes at a cost. Price spikes have hit discount providers and their customers who were overly dependent upon the spot market. This is normally very cheap due to market design and inbuilt capacity, but, as with all such hedges, it entails a tail risk that can be severe. But the supply itself was never endangered.

        2. David Hicklin Bronze badge

          Re: No Way!!!

          >> European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, *** reliable *** juice

          During the winter Germany was facing big risks of significant power shortages due to gas supply issues mainly down to cutting off from Russian gas (they went to alert status several times), so reliability becomes a worrying issue

          This could also hit the UK as we usually draw on the european connector to import gas during peak periods, I think it is pretty much permanently flowing the other way now.

          1. Binraider Silver badge

            Re: No Way!!!

            Being a net exporter should be good for the UK on the whole... Provided the profits OF doing the export find their way here.

            It wasn't that long ago we were a net energy exporter and the economy did rather well out of that.

          2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

            Re: No Way!!!

            Germany faced no risk of shortages during the winter largely due to switching on more coal plants and also buggering up the gas markets by buying everything in site. Next winter could also be tricky but after that things should return to some kind of normality. Gas-based industrial production will continue to suffer, though that might not be such a bad thing in the end.

      2. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: No Way!!!

        @Charlie Clark

        "The broken record is back!"

        I am so glad someone else corrected you. Instead of your knee jerk Pavlovian response why dont you read first.

        "the UK had some of the most expensive energy partly due to the lack of such infrastructure."

        You mean this bit I quote from my comment you are responding to- "How can Europe be having supply issues after blowing huge amounts on power generating infrastructure?"

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Headmaster

          Re: No Way!!!

          'knee jerk Pavlovian response'

          That's a tautology.

          1. codejunky Silver badge

            Re: No Way!!!

            @AC

            "That's a tautology."

            He theoretically read the article and claimed it didnt say what it said. He read my comment and still managed to miss what was said. I considered writing it a few other ways too just so there was hope of him reading and understanding it.

        2. Charlie Clark Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: No Way!!!

          I believe this is yours. Close the door on your way out.

          1. codejunky Silver badge
            Pint

            Re: No Way!!!

            @Charlie Clark

            "I believe this is yours. Close the door on your way out."

            Thank you coat check but I think I will grab another drink

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: No Way!!!

              'Thank you coat check but I think I will grab another drink'

              Judging by the above, you've probably had enough already.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No Way!!!

      Sir Bufton of Tufton returns!

    3. Jonathon Green
      Boffin

      Re: No Way!!!

      I can’t believe it either.

      A report commissioned, paid for, published by, and with its terms of reference set by a company who’s principal business is on-site power generation reaching conclusions suggesting that on-site power generation might be a handy thing to have…

      I’m shocked I tell you, I imagine whoever at Aggreko signed off on it was on tenterhooks waiting for it to be delivered and then couldn’t put it down until the shocking, final page denouement…

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No Way!!!

        What manner of simpleton would fall for this kind of report's conclusion ... ?

      2. Charlie Clark Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: No Way!!!

        Here you go.

      3. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: No Way!!!

        @Jonathon Green

        "A report commissioned, paid for, published by, and with its terms of reference set by a company who’s principal business is on-site power generation reaching conclusions suggesting that on-site power generation might be a handy thing to have…"

        Probably helped by the winter we just went through that was luckily mild and yet countries just got through while turning to coal again.

  8. The commentard formerly known as Mister_C

    Whaddyamean "by extension"

    "The report also found that Nordic datacenter operators tended to prioritize taking advantage of ambient weather conditions, which allows them to forgo power-hungry cooling equipment in favor of free environmental cooling to further reduce their energy consumption and by extension greenhouse gas emissions."

    In the previous paragraph you made it clear that Scandiland tends to use renewable sources for their elastic trickery. Even if they ignored the snow outside (passive cooling) and actively cooled, they'd only create greenhouse gas emissions if they started buying their power from fossil burners shirley?

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: Whaddyamean "by extension"

      ...they'd only create greenhouse gas emissions if they started buying their power from fossil burners shirley?

      Well, the way the market is rigged, when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine, they have to. Well, mostly. Some parts of Scandiland have sensibly invested in nuclear. Germany meanwhile has disinvested in nuclear, closed it's last reactors and seems.. suprised that it's electricity prices were increased by around 30% following that closure notice. But it's building coal plants to replace nuclear, because coal fired power stations are greener and better protected against tsunamis. Or something.

    2. Stork Silver badge

      Re: Whaddyamean "by extension"

      In reality, Norway and Sweden are connected to the grids in Denmark and Germany and any power not used at home can replace fossil power in the other countries.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like