Top 10 Data Center Sustainability Stories of 2024

In some ways, the sustainability trends that shaped the data center industry in 2024 were unsurprising. Data center energy consumption – and, by extension, carbon emissions – increased, due in large part to greater deployment of AI workloads. Concerns about data center sustainability helped fuel protests against the industry. Environmentalist groups called for greater transparency around data center energy use.

But in other ways, sustainability trends over the past year were less predictable. They involved innovative efforts to reduce data center energy waste by, for example, heating Olympic swimming pools and deploying algae (yes, you read that right) to capture excess heat. It remains to be seen, however, whether efforts like these will become staples of data center sustainability and conservation efforts, or whether they're just innovative proof-of-concepts that will not end gaining widespread adoption.

For details on these and other key trends in the world of data center sustainability and energy efficiency, keep reading as we unpack the top sustainability stories on Data Center Knowledge in 2024.

1. Why Communities Are Protesting Data Centers – And How the Industry Can Respond

It would be wrong to say that sustainability concerns are the very top reason why communities in various parts of the globe are protesting data centers. But alongside issues like "NIMBYism" and anxiety surrounding globalization, worries that data centers will deprive local communities of electricity and water are one key factor.

This suggests that it's no longer just sustainability activists who are complaining about the negative impact of data centers. Protesters for whom sustainability is not necessarily a top concern are also seizing on sustainability concerns as a way of pushing back against data center construction and expansion. Read more.

2. Paris 2024: Excess Data Center Heat Used to Warm Olympic Swimming Pools

Data centers would be more sustainable if the heat they generate as part of their operations could be reused – as it was during the Paris Olympics, where heat from an Equinix data center was repurposed to warm swimming facilities.

This was a small-scale project that will barely make a dent in overall data center energy efficiency. Still, it provides a creative example of how data center operators can repurpose heat that would otherwise go to waste. Read more.

3. Could Algae Be the Key to Data Center Sustainability?

Repurposing data center heat is relatively easy for facilities located in regions where the heat can warm homes or swimming pools. But what about data centers in warmer climates, or during warm seasons? Under those conditions, you can't simply pump excess heat into adjacent buildings or other facilities.

One thing you can do, however, is use the spare heat to grow algae – which is what researchers did as a pilot project this year aimed at finding ways to reuse heat in warmer climates. By using heat to grow plants, and then using the plants for other purposes (like making fertilizer), data center operators can open another avenue for improving overall efficiency and sustainability. For now, however, this remains a small-scale experiment, and it's unclear whether it can scale enough to make a significant dent in overall data center sustainability. Read more.

4. DOE Report Exposes Critical Impact of AI on Data Center Power Consumption

If you're familiar with the basics of AI technology, you probably don't need a government report to tell you that AI workloads use a lot of energy due to their extensive use of compute resources. But if you want quantitative proof, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) provided a report that details just how much more electricity data centers are projected to consume in order to support AI workloads, and how this trend will impact power grids.

The data also offers some indication of how much additional energy data center operators will need to source from renewables if they want to accommodate AI workloads without increasing their carbon footprint. Read more.

5. Data Center Emissions: Virginia, Texas, California Top CO2 Chart

U.S. states with the largest concentrations of data centers are the highest contributors to data center emissions, according to a study released this year by KnownHost. While that may not seem surprising, it is notable in the sense that some of these regions – especially California and Virginia – are also home to data centers owned by major hyperscalers, who have tended to be at the forefront of investing in clean and renewable energy sources. The report suggests that, despite those efforts, emissions remain a persistent challenge for the industry. Read more.

6. ECL Shares Details of ‘World’s First’ Hydrogen-Powered Data Center

One way to generate more energy without paying a big price on the sustainability front is to leverage hydrogen as a power source. In theory, hydrogen fuel cells can generate electricity with negligible emissions, making hydrogen an ultra-clean fuel source – and one that doesn't pose a danger of melting down, as nuclear reactors might. The downside is that, currently, generating power using hydrogen requires the use of fossil fuels, so the process is not actually all that sustainable overall.

Nonetheless, ECL reported in 2024 that it is prototyping a hydrogen-powered data center in California. If successful, the project could prove critical for bridging the gap between the theory and the reality of hydrogen fuel in data centers, making it much easier for the industry to source clean, safe energy. Read more.

7. US Energy Experts Highlight Potential for Nuclear-Powered Data Centers

Unlike hydrogen fuel cells, nuclear power is a tried-and-true means of producing low-emissions electricity. But also unlike hydrogen, nuclear energy has a major downside: The potential for reactors to melt down and spew radioactive poison across wide areas.

For this reason, nuclear power has always been a controversial topic in the data center industry and elsewhere. Yet, as data center energy needs continue to climb steadily, U.S. government researchers are increasingly touting the benefits of nuclear as a way to improve data center sustainability – especially when it's combined in innovative ways with other energy sources, such as solar and wind, with nuclear stepping in when the latter sources become unavailable. Read more.

8. Building a More Sustainable Data Center: Challenges and Opportunities in the AI Era

While energy efficiency was at the heart of many of the data center sustainability conversations over the past year, improving sustainability requires more than just sourcing clean electricity. A variety of other practices, such as data center rightsizing and efficient cooling techniques, are also important steps, as our guide to building a more sustainable data center shows. Read more. Read more.

9. Strategies for Sustainable Water Consumption in Data Centers

Improving water use efficiency, too, is an important component in overall data center sustainability. Our guide to this topic highlights current trends and innovations in data center water usage, such as direct-to-chip cooling and rear rack cooling. It also discusses how data center operators can effectively measure their water use – which is essential, of course, because you can rarely improve what you don't quantify. Read more.

10. Data Center Industry Calls for Environmental ‘Nutrition Labels’ to Cut Carbon Emissions

Speaking of measuring water efficiency and other sustainability-related metrics, 2024 also saw a call from the iMasons Climate Accord, a group that advocates for reducing the carbon associated with digital infrastructure, for data center operators to publish "nutrition labels" detailing their sustainability outcomes. The goal is to improve transparency into how many emissions data centers are producing.

So far, there is no evidence that any data center actually plans to release emissions details in this format, but if any does – or if data center industry regulators were to adopt similar requirements – it could touch off an important new trend that would make it much easier to determine exactly how sustainable data centers are. Read more.