Netherlands Data Center Now Facing Clean Energy Shortage

The shortage of energy sources in the Netherlands' data centers has become so acute that the country's largest hosting provider, Green.ch, is now not accepting new customers due to the risk of power brownouts.

The Netherlands is facing a clean energy shortage, with data centers struggling to secure enough green power.

There have been monumental shifts in how citizens worldwide view energy consumption and availability in the past few years. When fossil fuels are deemed harmful to the environment and renewables are good, it's not surprising to see nations shift toward “clean” energy sources.

However, with these shifts come new problems. One example of this is the current climate of sustainability in the Netherlands. In a country that initially got its reputation as a hub of virtual transparency and security, it seems that those cloudy days may have finally caught up with them.

The country's power grid operator TenneT has reported a deficit of more than 3GW in renewable energy production, which will only be filled by 2020 at the earliest.

TenneT said it would need to invest €1bn in new infrastructure to meet its 2020 target of generating 20% of its electricity from renewable sources.

"We can't wait until 2020," said Stan Bolhuis, an energy expert at TenneT. "We need to bring forward investment now."

The country’s primary data center, The Edge, which is based in Amsterdam and owned by Google, was forced to shut down one of its two data centers due to an inability to source enough wind energy. The other facility will be closed at the end of this year.

There are concerns about the reliability of wind energy

Wind power has become increasingly important in the Netherlands as it looks for ways to reduce its carbon footprint.

The country currently gets about 12% of its electricity from wind. Still, there are concerns about its reliability because on calm days or during periods of low demand, wind farms do not have enough power to meet demand.

This marks a significant setback for renewable energy advocates who argue Europe needs to invest more heavily in clean power sources to meet its climate goals under the Paris Agreement.

Wind power will play an essential role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions — significantly as countries like Germany move away from nuclear power following Japan.

There are concerns about the reliability of wind energy, which has led to a push for facilities that store power. Recent research suggests that even with significant improvements in battery technology, it could take decades before they can provide reliable backup power.

The problems stem from the fact that wind is inherently variable. No matter how many turbines you build, you can never be sure when they'll produce electricity. That means when demand peaks on a hot summer afternoon, there may not be enough wind available to meet it.

Wind energy will play a more prominent role in future years. The goal is to increase the share of wind power to 18% by 2023 and 35% by 2030. This will require significant investment in infrastructure, such as offshore wind farms and high-voltage direct current lines.

Solar energy can be affected by the weather.

Solar energy is not constant, as it depends on solar radiation and cloud coverage. This means that a data center will require more energy to heat water or power a building if there's a lot of cloud cover.

The Netherlands has been experiencing an energy crisis for quite a while now. A few weeks ago, the country had to buy electricity from abroad to meet demand, which has happened only once before in recent history.

However, the Dutch government believes solar energy can be essential in solving this problem. This would reduce the amount of natural gas used by buildings and consumer costs.

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The Netherlands is facing an energy shortage.

The country heavily depends on natural gas from Russia, which provides about 60% of its supply. But the Russian government has banned natural gas exports to Europe through Ukraine because of its ongoing conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The European Union (EU) relies heavily on Russia for its natural gas supplies and has also been affected by the cutoff. According to Reuters, the EU produces about 25% of its natural gas domestically but imports more than half from Russia — about 150 billion cubic meters annually.

As a result of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict, natural gas prices have increased significantly in the past five years.

In addition, there has been an increasing trend of data centers moving from traditional on-premises colocation facilities to cloud hosting providers.

This trend is causing a spike in demand for highly efficient and scalable data center solutions that can be deployed quickly and at a lower cost.

Data center operators have been battered by rising gas prices, with some reporting up to a 500 percent increase in operating costs this year.