Glasgow, We’re Ready

At long last, Australia looks poised to fall into line with the global consensus on climate change action and take a much stronger position on emissions reduction targets to Glasgow this month. This likely target, net-zero by 2050, is an important step to hopefully stem the damage already done to our planet by the carbonisation of our economy.

Hitting this ambitious target will be no mean feat. From March 2020 to March 2021, Australia produced 494 million tonnes of CO2, with 164 million tonnes from electricity generation alone(1). With 280 terawatt-hours (TWh) produced in Australia during 2020(2), that’s around 580 grams or 0.58kg of CO2 per kilowatt-hour (KWh). Over half a kilo of carbon per kilowatt – that’s a big problem.

The good news is, we’re rapidly shifting to renewable-based energy generation, but this will still take time. In the interim, we need users of electricity to examine their own efficiency. We need all industries to become more sustainable and efficient with both the power they source and the amount they use.

There are many industries that have adapted, and some that are still adapting. But there’s still much more to do. Our sector – data centres and cloud infrastructure – falls into the latter. New types of Cloud services like our own Supercloud product – can provide businesses with direct access to products and services that will significantly reduce their carbon footprint.

Our industry has the added concern of fast-paced growth in consumption. Accelerated by the COVID pandemic, demand for cloud services are booming around the world. In Australia, during 2020 we consumed $1.38bn of cloud products, up a whopping 38% from 2019’s $988m. It’s not stopping either, with the forecast for 2021 as high as $1.74bn, another 28% above 2020’s numbers.

All this compute needs to be hosted and powered somewhere. In Australia, this is primarily the fleet of data centres run by some of Australia’s largest technology companies. The reality of the clouds is vast warehouses providing constant power, cooling and a stable environment to run today’s public clouds.

The power required for this is substantial. In total, Australia has around 1,047 MW of installed IT load in data centres in 2021, which is forecast to increase to 1,463 MW by 2024. To bring it back to annual consumption, that is 9.17 TWh today, up to 12.8 TWh by 2026(3). Overlaying our national carbon coefficient as it is today, and we’re potentially emitting up to 5.3 megatonnes of C02 as it stands today to run this fleet of Data Centres, rising to 7.4 megatonnes (or million tonnes) by 2024.

7.4 megatonnes is easy to say, but hard to visualise. Using coal mines as a barometer – a well understood heavy polluter – is one way. The controversial Adani Carmichael Coal Mine in Queensland will produce 240,000 tonnes, or 240 kilotonnes, of C02 annually, when at full production capacity of 10m tonnes of coal per annum(5). Therefore, left unchecked, Australia’s data centres at 7,400,000 tonnes of C02 by 2024 will represent 30x the pollution generated by Adani’s Carmichael mine per year, or 1.5% of Australia’s total carbon emissions – a climate disaster that we believe not fully understood.

Globally, the problem is more substantial. The amount of C02 emitted by data centres and the clouds they host is equal to 2% of global C02 pollution. That’s the same size as the aviation industry. This is not just an Australian trend, data created and consumed around the world is also growing exponentially, rising from 64 zettabytes in 2020 to a forecast of 181 zettabytes in 2025 – nearly tripling in 5 years(6). With so much of this generation and consumption moving to data centre powered cloud services, it is not hard to predict the growing and material negative impact that the world’s data centre fleet will have on climate change in the future.

Firmus has the most energy-efficient data centre in Australia. Right here, right now.

At Firmus, we recognised the challenge within our industry ahead of time and set about to build next-generation immersion-based cloud data centre technology that we consider to be the most efficient in the world. Our data centre in Tasmania is connected to mainland Australia by high-speed fibre and runs on 100% Tasmanian renewable energy.

This is a true innovation in efficiency for cloud hosting and a game-changer for Australia. You can read more about our solution here, and the massive leap in efficiency it brings. More to the point, however, is the positive impact that Firmus can have on helping Australia meet its emission reduction goals, whilst at the same time positioning Australia within a global knowledge economy in regards to advanced AI and computational tools.

The Effect of PUE

Our 20MW data centre’s 1.03 PUE – to our knowledge the best in the world – requires vastly less power to operate on a comparative basis than current best in class legacy DCs from Equinix, AirTrunk, NextDC and others. NextDC for example, a highly innovative early leader in the design and build of air-cooled data centres locally, make note of a 1.4 PUE average for their facilities across Australia(4).

Renewable or not – less energy consumed for the same job, in our estimation, is a better outcome! Taking the extra 3.64 TWh of extra annual DC IT power load forecast in Australia by 2024, if all built out using Firmus’ ground-breaking 1.03 PUE efficiency, would result in a net requirement for 3.75 TWh per annum (3.64 x 1.03). That same 3.64 TWh of annual IT load running at a PUE of 1.4 in 2024 would require 5.10 TWh or 1.34 TWh per annum more than a Firmus solution. In emission terms, at the current 0.58kg/C02-e, that’s a saving of 782 kilotonnes on that growth capacity alone!

The Effect of Location

Beyond hyper-efficiency, we’re committed to a circular approach to infrastructure. By building our data centre in Australia’s home of renewable energy Tasmania we have access to a guaranteed plentiful supply of renewable energy to power our data centre. You can read more about the benefits of our partnership with Tasmania here.

In November 2020, Tasmania met 100% of local energy demands with 100% supply from renewable sources. A total of 10,741 GWh of renewable generation capacity was realised then and continues to grow as Tasmania positions itself to be the ‘Battery of the Nation’ – with a plan to double production of local clean energy in the coming years, becoming a constant source of supply to the rest of Australia.

With a source of 100% renewable power fueling one of the world’s most efficient data centres – Firmus has built a runway for Australia to become a global leader in sustainable computing. Our existing 3MW LST01 data hall is rapidly growing to 20MW of IT load by December this year, and we’re doubling to 40MW by June 2022. All this is powered by clean and green zero-carbon Tasmanian energy, linked across Australia through fibre at the speed of light.

Lower Cost

Aside from the cost to use and cost to the environment, infrastructure needs to consider efficiencies in cost to build. As a little icing on top, our LST01-LST05 facilities (building out from 3MW today to 20MW in December 2021, then 40MW by June 2022), cost substantially less to build per MW with the same level of N+1 redundancy as our legacy air-cooled peers today.

That’s important, as combining a low cost to operate with a low cost to build will dramatically alter the cost base of clouds in Australia, which benefits us all.

We’re Ready!

Large scale carbon-free cloud infrastructure is already here at Firmus.

The renewable economy is one of opportunity, and something to look forward to, not fear. Firmus is the global leader in efficiency and sustainability for data centres, an Australian innovation, changing the world. Our growing and significant power load in Tasmania is networked to serve customers across the nation, ready to de-carbonise Australian clouds at scale.

So, bring on Glasgow, zero emissions and change. We’re ready!

– Tim

Sources

1. www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/national-greenhouse-gas-inventory-quarterly-update-march-2021
2. www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistics/annual-generation-capacity-and-peak-demand-nem
3. Azriton – Australia Data Centre Market Investment Analysis and Growth Opportunities 2021 – 2026
4. NEXTDC Annual Report – 2021
5. www.australianmining.com.au/news/adani-defends-carbon-emissions-at-carmichael/
6. www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/