Data Storage becomes Political

The Data Usage Barometer 2022: The report, found that fintech companies have a growing concern about their environmental impact and that this is a major factor in determining where to store their data.

Data Storage becomes Political

The Data Usage Barometer 2022: The report, found that fintech companies have a growing concern about their environmental impact and that this is a major factor in determining where to store their data.

Published: 29 Nov 2022
Author: FINTECH Circle

Recent political unrest triggered soaring energy costs and supply shocks, forcing a rethink of energy use in the EU and beyond. 

In May the EU unveiled a €210 billion plan for ending its reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027, and at the same time hasten its shift to green energy, with a deadline of 2050 to reach net zero. 

Four-fifths of survey respondents said that they are concerned about the impact of geopolitics on energy supply and/or costs. However, few are anticipating that geopolitics (along with the need for climate transition) will lead to greater regulation of data storage. 

Only 14% of survey respondents cited future data centre regulation as a key concern over growing data usage and storage.

However, the EU Commission has taken note of data centres growing energy use and carbon emissions. 

It is reviewing existing legislation and creating new initiatives to push data centres toward the goal of being carbon neutral by 2030 – using both the power of its purse to encourage energy efficiency and sustainability monitoring, and the threat of taxes or fees on carbon emissions. 

New regulations will mean the type of energy used by a data centre will matter and new accounting rules will restrict the use of emission offsetting. 

So, if a company is trying to decide where to locate its data storage, the emissions emitted by data centres in each location should be taken into consideration to avoid a financial penalty. 

For example, the average data centre in London, which produces 2,925.84 Metric Tons CO2eq for 1 MW, would be subject to levies that a data centre in Norway, which runs on hydropower and emits just 227.76 Metric Tons CO2eq for the same energy use, will not. 

In the UK, data centres’ growing energy usage is also becoming political, as it is putting them into competition with housing development. 

The average UK data centre consumes enough energy to power 5-10,000 homes, and in south-east England – home to half of Britain’s data centres and where the housing shortage is most severe – power grids are unable to cope with greater demand.

About FINTECH Circle 


FINTECH Circle is a global platform of more than 216,000+ Fintech entrepreneurs, investors, finance professionals, academic & government representatives, and solution providers. The company launched Europe’s 1st Angel Investor Network providing seed capital to the best fintech startups in the UK.

FINTECH Circle also runs courses, webinars & innovation workshops for finance teams and C-level executives and publishes fintech thought-leadership titles.


About Bulk Data Centers

Bulk Data Centers delivers ultra-flexible, highly connected, and massively scalable data center and colocation solutions backed by personalized service.

Bulk operates sustainably, using renewable energy. Bulk Data Centers is part of Bulk Infrastructure Group AS as one of three business areas, where the other two areas are Industrial Real Estate and Fiber Networks. Bulk’s overall vision is to create sustainable infrastructure solutions. The company is headquartered in Oslo and has employees in Oslo, Kristiansand, Copenhagen and London.

https://bulkinfrastructure.com/

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