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Scotland's first eco-powered data farm

I delighted to see that Internet Villages International are building a major data centre to be powered entirely by "green" energy in Scotland. This is exactly the kind of development that some of us have been arguing for. The centre will be built next to a source of renewable energy and the waste heat is intended to be used for a new village and for local horticulture.

This makes sense in many ways. Data centres do not need to be near the businesses that use them (think of how often you use Google and where their data centres are). Placing them near sources of renewable energy saves on transmission losses; indeed Google, Amazon and other firms are already doing this in the USA. Also, data centres produce a lot of heat and it makes sense to use this rather than waste it.

Let's hope that the operators minimise the energy they do use as well, for example by running virtualised servers, building modular UPS and cooling systems, and using external air intakes rather than cooling recycled air.

I have no idea who is behind Internet Villages International are, although this URL suggests they are related to Cygnet. Whoever they are, I wish them every success.

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