Best European Countries for Power Hungry Data Centers
The chart tells us that Ireland despite its low tax rates is quite costly with the highest power rates in the EU. It is often joked that a data centre is a power reseller and there's a lot of truth in that statement. For example, Equinix reports that power and cooling are 80% of its infrastructure operating expense. In general, a data centre's overall operating expense can be as much as 50% electricity. From what I can tell Irish data centre demand for electricity has grown much faster than the country's power capacity. Data centres consume 21% of Ireland's electricity versus 18% for households. This is an astonishing figure. High German rates reflect the failed Energiewende. The system costs of wind and solar are extremely high in Germany and both sources are heavily subsidized via guaranteed tariffs because the load factors (annual capacity utilization rates) are very low. For example, a German solar farm only operates at 10% of capacity on an annual basis whereas Am...
