SUSTAINABILITY

Seawater abstracted

Data centres as grid assets AI workloads also change how facilities interact with the grid. The IEA reports that AI training and inference produce repeated load swings of more than 50 % of rated capacity within a second, making energy storage critical to reliable supply. It estimates 20GW to 25GW of battery storage could be installed in data centres globally by 2030, potentially turning them into grid resources if incentives align. Where grid connections are slow, particularly in the US, developers are turning to on-site natural gas, which the IEA expects could supply 15GW to 27GW of data centre demand by 2030.

Regulation sets a common baseline On 21 September of this year, the European Commission proposed a common rating scheme for data centres above 500kW, covering actual energy and water use, waste heat reuse and new clean generation capacity. The first labels are expected in 2027 and the Commission has opened consultation on minimum performance standards.

The direction of travel is towards comparable, published performance data. The three case studies that follow show how operators in Portugal, Sweden and Norway are generating it.

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