With energy demand within the data center segment surging to historic highs thanks to the proliferation of cloud and artificial intelligence services, the increasingly power-hungry industry could tap into wind energy to fulfill its power demands. Large players in the cloud services and AI sectors typically consume enough energy to rival entire nations, resulting in significant data-center-related emissions.
Green energy from wind turbines could help players in the data center segment reduce their carbon footprints substantially and even lower their energy costs. Data centers have been around for quite a long time, but their energy consumption has seen a notable spike in recent years. More firms are opting to rent cloud storage rather than build and maintain their servers, making cloud storage an incredibly lucrative business.
Additionally, the recent proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI has elevated the need for data centers several times over, increasing the sector’s energy consumption substantially. Renewable energy from wind turbines coupled with energy storage facilities could be the key to making data centers carbon-free.
The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that modern offshore wind turbines have a capacity of 8-12 megawatts while onshore wind turbines have a capacity of 3MW, more than enough to power a data center. Modern turbines tend to be taller with larger rotor diameters thanks to their longer blades, allowing them to ‘capture’ more wind and higher altitudes where the wind flows faster and more freely.
Offshore wind turbines are even more efficient at generating electricity as wind encounters little to no friction as it travels over large bodies of water. The 2024 Land-Based Wind Market Report from Berkeley Lab notes that locations with higher-than-average rates of wind shear are ideal for onshore wind turbines. In addition to wind shear, airspace is a major consideration when planning wind farms.
The average wind turbine has a pretty small physical footprint but the turbines themselves can occupy a lot of airspace. Experts from the University of Michigan estimate that 0.27 to 0.40 square miles of land is needed to generate 2-3MW of wind energy. As a result, wind farms with multiple turbines require considerable land to ensure they run as optimally as possible.
In addition, project planners will have to consider the space required to transport wind turbines. Since these massive structures cannot be bent or folded once they are constructed, transporting them to ideal locations can be incredibly tricky. These and other limitations mean that data centers will have a hard time building their wind farms on-site.
Due to the astronomical amounts of energy needed to power artificial intelligence workloads, containers, and servers, even horizontal wind turbines wouldn’t produce enough energy to power a data center, especially one with limited land. As such, combining wind energy with other renewables like solar could help data center managers generate enough power to keep vital operations running.
As more companies like Energy and Water Development Corp. (OTCQB: EAWD) come up with innovative products geared at promoting the adoption of clean energy, data center operators could have even more options to choose from in their bid to slash the carbon footprint of their facilities.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Energy and Water Development Corp. (OTCQB: EAWD) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/EAWD
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