Conclusions


The North of Scotland is a good place for data centres because:

 

It is economically feasible to power a small data centre with renewables:

Operating in N Scotland, the benefits relative to an averagely efficient data centre of the same size on grid in SE England are:

See attached spreadsheet for calculations and assumptions

When tidal current technology becomes more robust and commercial, this will allow larger scale facilities to be sited in the region.

Wind will only be useable in conjunction with grid electricity and possibly a small amount of hydrogen storage to cover peak loading stress.  This is an area for further study.

Suggested areas of study

Wind and biogas is the lowest overall cost option for building and operating a data centre, but it is limited by the availability of organic wastes. It would be worth studying this option in more depth to determine how far this could be scaled up, and also to look at whether use of grid electricity could extend the scalability.

Investigating an option to use wind and the grid but with a small backup hydrogen store to cover peak loading periods. This would require looking at the supply/demand balance for a wider community, domestic and industrial. 

Further work on comparing the effectiveness and economics of storage for data centre applications would be useful.  Specific areas to look at include:  Fast charge time batteries; compressed air at medium scale; Flow batteries.

 

References used in this page:

(1) http://www.anaerobic-digestion.com/html/how-to-calculate-greenhouse-ga.php, accessed 28 April 2010.