{"id":90065,"date":"2023-08-03T10:17:35","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T10:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com"},"modified":"2023-08-03T10:22:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T10:22:58","slug":"new-technologies-are-needed-to-curb-data-center-energy-use-says-the-iea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/new-technologies-are-needed-to-curb-data-center-energy-use-says-the-iea","title":{"rendered":"New Technologies Are Needed to Curb Data Center Energy Use, Says the IEA"},"content":{"rendered":"
Data centers<\/a> and transmission networks<\/a> have made advances in energy efficiency in recent years that have limited their energy consumption growth even as their capacity has increased rapidly.<\/p>\n However, with the rising adoption of data-intensive applications such as artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI), cloud computing<\/a>, cryptocurrency mining<\/a>, and blockchain adoption<\/a>,\u00a0the industry will need new technologies and solutions to achieve net zero emissions, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.<\/p>\n Data centers consumed an estimated 240-340\u202fterawatt hours (TWh) of electricity globally in 2022, accounting for around 1-1.3% of final electricity demand<\/a>. That excludes electricity consumed by cryptocurrency mining, which was estimated to be around 110TWh, or 0.4% of annual demand. Data transmission networks similarly consumed 260-360\u202fTWh in 2022, or around 1-1.5% of global demand.<\/p>\n Since 2010, energy consumption from data centers (excluding cryptocurrency mining) \u2013 and, as a consequence, their carbon emissions \u2013 has increased moderately despite strong growth in demand for their services. This is in part because of improvements to the efficiency of IT hardware<\/a> and cooling systems and a transition to hyper-scale facilities from small, inefficient enterprise data centers.<\/p>\n It is also because information and communications technology<\/a> (ICT) companies are increasingly prioritizing purchasing renewable energy, as well as the broader decarbonization of electricity grids in many parts of the world.<\/p>\n Additionally, waste heat from data centers is increasingly being used to help supply heating to nearby commercial and residential buildings or industrial heat consumers, reducing their energy use.<\/p>\n However, governments and industry players need to invest in advancing energy efficiency, research and development, and the decarbonization of electricity supply and supply chains to curb energy demand and rapidly cut emissions over the coming decade. This investment is essential to get on track with plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.<\/p>\n To achieve net zero, emissions must halve by the end of this decade.<\/p>\n Despite the strong gains in energy efficiency, energy consumption from large data centers has climbed by 20-40% in recent years as their workloads have increased rapidly.<\/p>\n Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta saw their combined electricity consumption more than double from 2017 to around 72TWh in 2021. Overall energy consumption at data centers, excluding cryptocurrency, is set to continue rising moderately over the coming years.<\/p>\n While total global power consumption at data centers has grown only slightly, some smaller countries where markets are expanding are seeing rapid growth. For example, Ireland\u2019s data center power demand has more than tripled since 2015, accounting for 18% of the country\u2019s total electricity consumption in 2022. Data centers and other large non-industrial electricity users could account for 28% of national demand by 2031.<\/p>\n Data center electricity demand in Denmark is projected to increase six times by 2030 to account for close to 15% of the country\u2019s electricity consumption.<\/p>\n Global Trends in Data Center Use<\/strong><\/p>\nLarge Data Center Energy Demand On the Rise<\/span><\/h2>\n