Iomart will now power its flagship data centre in Maidenhead with its own rooftop solar installation. Image: iomart

Cloud services provider iomart has announced it  will now power its flagship data centre with a rooftop solar installation.

A total of 560 solar panels have been installed on iomart’s Maidenhead data centre, capable of generating around 250,000kWh of energy each year. According to iomart, this will avoid 96,061 kg of CO2 emissions annually.

This installation is part of iomart’s move to power all of its data centres with 100% renewable power, including energy from wind, hydro, and solar sources.

David Gammie, CTO at iomart, said: “We have a large portfolio of data centres across the UK and making sure they’re as sustainable as possible is one of our biggest focuses at iomart.

“We’ve already committed to powering all our data centres with 100% renewable energy. This installation at Maidenhead takes that commitment one step further – generating our own energy onsite, and in addition the potential to export energy back into the grid network in the future.

“Our Maidenhead data centre is the ideal location for a project like this. It has a vast roof space, making solar panels the ideal solution.”

Reducing the impact of data centres

Data centres are becoming an increasing focus of decarbonisation efforts due to the immense amount of energy these facilities consume. Globally, data centres are estimated to make up 3% of the world’s electricity usage annually, and forecasts from the National Grid predict that the rise of AI will cause data centre power usage to increase six-fold in the next decade.

As such, many data centre operators have been investing in renewable technologies to power their sites. In May, Greek energy company Mytilineos signed two long term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Keppel DC REIT, who will power its two Dublin data centres with energy generated from solar farms in Ireland.

In June, Keppel DC REIT also signed an agreement with GridBeyond, who will provide battery energy storage systems (BESS) for Keppel DC’s data centres. Two 2MW/2.2MWh BESS will be installed at Keppel DC’s Citywest site, while an additional 4MW/6.1MWh BESS will be installed at the Ballycoolin site.

Data centres make up a significant part of Ireland’s electricity usage; estimates suggest that in 2022, Irish data centres consumed roughly 5.3TWh of electricity, representing around 17% of the ry’s electricity usage.

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