Google building datacenter campus on the outskirts of London Google has commenced construction of a $1 billion datacenter complex on the outskirts of London it says is needed to provide a reliable service to Google Cloud customers and users of Google in the UK. The latest datacenter is based on a 33 acre site north of London at Waltham Cross, not far from the M25 motorway that encircles …
Construction work is going to be very significant, but only until the bit barn is built. Afterwards, you can expect 60 to 150 full-time employees depending on the size of the site, and three times as many vendors ("employees of another company hired by Google but they totally don't work for Google and their contract looks very different").
Google claimed its new facility will be ready for off-site heat recovery, capturing waste heat that can be used to benefit the local community.
I wonder if their strategists saw the proximity to-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freezywater
and figured that would do for cooling? But curious why AlphaGoo's opted for proximity to London rather than somewhere where power availability might be better/cheaper. AlphaGoo's big enough to run fibre to somewhere North (or even South) and hook into the international cables that land and run into London. The UK is already pretty power constrained in DC-heavy areas like London and Slough anyway.
"However, the Chocolate Factory is giving little detail away about its plans for the location, declining to confirm how many datacenter buildings the campus will comprise, how much total floor space it will have, or how much IT infrastructure it will have capacity for."
Presumably there will have been a planning application to the local authority that would answer the first two of these three questions. Unless, like paying tax, planning law is another thing Google is exempt from. If they are hoping to have this in operation next year and given that planning is a slow process, the application must have been put in a while back.
There are a series of planning applications here:
https://planning.broxbourne.gov.uk/LPAssure/ES/Presentation/Planning/OnlinePlanning/OnlinePlanningSearch#
Search for “ Land at Maxwells Farm West Great Cambridge Road Cheshunt Hertfordshire”.
There is a good piece here: https://anonw.com/tag/google-waltham-cross-data-centre/
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See also - every other mofo who claims to be carbon-neutral.
All enabled by a con-trick called REGO, or Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin. Subsidy farms sell those indulgences to carbon sinners so they can make claims like "100% Renewable Energy". So they can buy say, 100MWh of REGOs, and providing they don't use more than 100MWh of energy, the claim holds. The actual energy used will come from the usual mix like this-
https://gridwatch.co.uk/
https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind
minimum: 2.928 GW maximum: 16.713 GW average: 9.056 GW
Just another in the many ways our energy costs are inflated, and gullible consumers fooled.
It's not entirely wrong — some of the energy inserted into the grid is known to be green, though perhaps produced at a higher price, and companies can pay the higher price for the bragging right of being those who, if not use, at least subsidise this energy production. Ultimately, it's a matter of money — if you want to claim to be green, you need to pay more. This encourages the production of green energy, raises the price for companies that care about being green, and overall encourages using less energy when possible.
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