Sustainable scale: The green data centre

Sustainable scale: The green data centre

Data centres are high energy users. For companies seeking both greater digitalisation and sustainability, green data centres are the only option. Let's look at the ways data centres operators are building sustainability across energy, water and land usage.

5 Mins

28th March 2025

Article

Sustainability, Data centre

Key takeaways

Without green data centres, companies will generate larger volumes of scope 3 emissions.
By optimising power usage effectiveness (PUE) and water usage effectiveness (WUE) data centres are reducing their environmental impact.
Green data centres of the future will seek effective use of space and more efficient energy transmission to build greater sustainability. 

Becoming a sustainable business requires continual adjustments in daily operations, there is no big green button that will ‘solve’ the multiple challenges it faces. Making these adjustments in every corner is how companies have tackled the ‘unsolvable’ sustainability tasks such as heavy-industry manufacturing, aviation and data centre operations.

 

Data centres currently consume up to 2% of the world’s electricity and that consumption is expected to grow to 4% by 2030, largely driven by the rise of AI.1

 

Sourcing renewable energy and building energy efficiency are critical tasks for data centre operators in an increasingly competitive market. As their clients seek greater reductions on scope 3 emissions, the carbon cost of running a data centre is thrown into the spotlight and operators must demonstrate their sustainability.

 

Power usage effectiveness (PUE)

As the world inches toward greater electrification, the demand for electricity is at risk of outstripping the supply. In the tech sector alone, we are heading for ‘data doomsday’ where the demand for electricity to power data processing will outstrip the total global energy supply by 2033.2

 

One method that data centre operators use to tackle this challenge is focusing on Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). PUE describes a data centre’s total energy consumption divided by the energy used by the computing equipment. The industry average is between 1.55 and 1.59 PUE3 meaning the computing equipment uses around 63% of the data centre’s total energy consumption.

 

DC Tuas will be Singtel’s largest data centre in Singapore with a full load capacity of 58 Megawatts (MW). Despite its size, the data centre is expected to reach 1.23 PUE at full load, which is well below the industry average.4

 

It is not just PUE that builds efficiency. The combination of optimised land, power, and water use helps Singtel build sustainability into its data centre offering and reduce overall GHG emissions, which, in turn, offers benefits to clients.

 

Water efficiency

As well as PUE, data centres measure water usage effectiveness (WUE). Similar to PUE, WUE divides the total water used by the data centre by the water used to cool the computing equipment. 

 

Leading Asian Data Centre operator Nxera is aiming to build the lowest PUE and highest WUE to make it the most sustainable data centre platform.5 It will achieve this with a combination of water conservation activities, including a cooling tower with seven cycles of concentration, water-efficient fittings, private meters, water leak detection systems and rainwater harvesting from the rooftop.

 

Since just a 1 MW data centre uses 25.5 million litres of water per year for cooling, water preservation must be part of all sustainable data centre conversations.6

 

Renewable energy

In addition to drawing on renewable energy sources, data centres can become their own source of energy. With large, closed roof space, the centres are ideal for solar panel photovoltaic (PV) installation and, by reducing the distance from source to usage, can minimise the energy loss associated with power transportation. 

 

With some of the longest daily hours of sunshine in APAC 7, Singapore and Australia data centres are perfect for PV installations: 

 

SingaporeAt DC West, solar panels cover the linkway between the guardroom and main building. In one year alone, this and other installations in Singapore are expected to generate 665MWh of solar energy.

 

AustraliaOptus installed solar PV panels on the rooftops at five sites. This provided 477kWp of generation capacity.4

 

Adding renewable energy sources to data centres ‘closes the loop’ of their environmental footprint and gets them closer to carbon neutrality. 

 

What’s next for sustainable data centres?

As PUE, renewable energy permeation and water efficiencies grow, data centre operators must look to their next opportunities for sustainability. Early trials into these opportunities include analysing the construction materials, use of space and biodiversity that is impacted by building data centres.

Innovations in data centre construction are drastically offsetting the carbon-cost of constructing new, purpose-built centres:

 

• Engineering giant Aurecon has been exploring opportunities for adding data centres into existing buildings such as offices and car parks left vacant after the shift to hybrid working.8

 

• US company Nautilus built the world’s first floating data centre using river water as part of its outside cooling loop.9

 

In the future, we will also see more clients incorporating edge computing into the data centre sustainability ecosystem as it reduces the energy associated with long-distance data transmission.

 

Singtel’s sustainable data centres are building hyper-connected and AI-ready economies. Ready to learn more?

 

References:

 

  1. Goldman Sachs, AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand, 2024
  2. Loughborough University, World heading towards a “data doomsday” as demand outstrips energy supply, 2024
  3. Aurecon, Is PUE enough? Measuring energy efficiency in data centres, 2024
  4. Singtel sustainability report, 2024
  5. Singtel advances AI development in Singapore and the region with strategic partners, 2024
  6. World Economic Forum, Why circular water solutions are key to sustainable data centres, 2024
  7. Wikipedia, Cities by sunshine duration, 2024
  8. Aurecon, Could emails help your office stay warm? 2024
  9. Data Centre Dynamics, Nautilus puts Stockton floating barge data center up for sale at $45m, 2024
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