A very interesting and direct article by Peter Judge highlights community pushback on multi-megawatt / #hyperscale data centre projects in the #USA & #UK.
While #community engagement is the primary point of the article, I’d suggest it also has a lot to do with communities understanding the very real impact on the energy grid (1000MW… what’s the impact on other industries), rubbery financial benefits to the community ($billions… really?), and 160+ diesel generators at a site (fuel storage would be immense and would require fuel tankers queued up in the streets to refill them should they need to be run in an emergency.. and would it impede hospitals getting fuel in emergency situations?).
Not to mention the impact on telco networks, #internet traffic and further centralisation of a skilled workforce.
#governments need to take note, bigger might sound better - but consider how smaller, right-sized, distributed #edge data centres offer lower impact on parts of the grid (can even possibly take more advantage of renewables), distributes and retains skilled technology people and their families, and if we’re honest is more financially realistic in returning value to communities, local councils and States being part of the digital economy.
Finally, let’s consider the question, where is the money ($billions as quoted in financial benefits) coming from?
Other parts of the IT sector, businesses, consumers, government?
#Australia #EMEA #APAC #NZ #energy #digitaleconomy #protectededge Oper8 Global #edgecomputing #edgedatacenter
Business savvy marketeer executing strategic, high-impact B2B marketing initiatives that drive brand relevance and market dominance.
1moThis makes my heart so happy seeing my company #CDW doing something good in my motherland changing lives for good #southafrica