Data Centres & Networks

Concern grows about data centre pressure on power and water

Concern grows about data centre pressure on power and water

A story that has been in the regional press since last week but is now gaining wider coverage involves a decision in Israel to stop grid processing of new data centres for 140 days given the strain on resources. Is this a sign of things to come in other countries?

It seems that the country’s electricity regulator has announced that it is freezing the processing of new applications to connect data centres to the power grid for the next 140 days.

The freeze is expected to last until early December and will impact all data centres with a capacity of 8MW or more. During the freeze, various authorities will try to develop a new policy for allocating electricity resources between data centres and the economy at large.

The high level of appplications is party due to policy changes defining data centres as national infrastructure in order to remove planning and construction constraints. The inevitable result has been to encourage more activity.

The response has been called an ‘emergency brake’. As the Data Centre Dynamics website explains, it is designed to ensure that the system does not make connection commitments it may be unable to fulfil in the future.

Other areas may also be reviewing growth in the light of concerns about resource management. Reuters notes that, having become the region's fastest-growing data centre hub, courting hyperscalers hard in a race to secure AI infrastructure investment, parts of Malaysia have recently been facing questions about resource usage of data centres, notably in Johor where much activity has been taking place.

New projects in Johor must now show how they will source electricity, with renewable energy increasingly a prerequisite for approval.

Global hyperscalers and data centre developers and operators are responding with a stronger emphasis on sustainability. Governments in other countries are also tightening standards to retain public support. 

Nevertheless, one estimate is that rising objections from residents are said to be a factor contributing to delays of at least three months for 57% of projects globally last year.

Late last year, Johor state announced a blanket ban on two categories of extremely water-intensive data centres. Another state, Selangor, is vetting proposals to meet global standards on energy and water efficiency.

Of course, other countries in Asia may seek to attract data centre business away from Malaysia but they too will undoubtedly face demands on land, water and electricity supply.

As Reuters notes, a 50-megawatt data centre can consume as much water as 2,200 households per day, and as much electricity as 22,000, according to Malaysia's central bank. And of course, home buyers looking to live in unspoiled areas may not be happy to learn that the land is to be levelled for data centres.



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