Challenges to Hub Cities
David McAuley moderated a discusson on Challenges to Hub Cities at DataCloud Ireland in Dublin on 13th September 2018 at the Convention Centre Dublin.
Val Walsh, SVP Commercial & Portfolio Management, Digital Realty
Donough Roche, COO, Infomart Data Centers
Simon Young, Regional Sales Manager, Munters
Tanya Duncan, Managing Director, Interxion Ireland
So What is a Smart City Anyhow?
David McAuley was joined by Scott McConnell of Equinix, Brian Hickey of EnerNOC, and Paddy Conlon of CBRE to discuss smart cities at TechConnect Live in the RDS, Dublin on 30th May 2018.
We discussed technology development and ways to promote innovation. Are we already in a smart city?
We joined the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) on 28th June 2018 for a workshop exploring corporate Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for wind and solar energy. The discussion received contributions by the IWEA, the Department of Energy, Brookfield Renewables, and Elgin Energy. We addressed the PPA question in terms of its relevance to the Irish data hosting industry.
How can the policy system facilitate the co-evolution of the growing renewable energy and digital industries?
There were some interesting developments highlighted at this session.
- Energy demand growth of digital corporates is showing a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately ten percent.
- The EU Commission’s new Renewable Energy Directive will make it the responsibility of member state governments to facilitate the establishment of a robust PPA market.
- In the EMEA region corporate PPAs are becoming more popular. Of the top corporate PPA deals in 2017 – digital companies made up three of the top four deals. Google (Avangrid renewables) – 196MW, Amazon (Lincoln Clean Energy) – 253 MW, Microsoft (General Electric) – 37MW. These deals were all for wind power.
- RE100 – It is relevant for Ireland that about 60% of the companies signed up to RE100 commitments have operations in Ireland. We need to ensure we can meet the corporate demand for renewable energy.
The PPA topic is explored further in our 2018 Q2 update.
Co-located at the National Construction Summit, Host in Ireland's Industry of Substance campaign kicked off with their Data Centre and Critical Infrastructure Expo. The event was held at CityWest on 2nd May 2018.
David McAuley chaired a panel discussion energy in data centres. Panellists included Kirby Group, EnerNOC, and Starline.
Titled "Ireland, Data Centres and Energy", this was an expansive discussion covering the opportunities, risks, myths and next steps for the Data Centre industry in terms of Energy.
