Worldwide data centre research company, Datacentrepricing, has launched a new report identifying the Top 10 Trends in the European third-party data centre market. The new research highlights the rapid increase in data centre capacity and revenues taking place in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the report, ‘Reshaping European Data Centre Market 2022 and beyond’, Datacentrepricing identifies the Top 10 Key Trends taking place over the next four year period impacting data centres. The report provides a forecast for data centre raised floor space, data centre customer power (DCCP), data centre pricing, and data centre revenues across the region.
The largest markets remain as the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France, buoyed by having the largest so-called FLAP Metro Markets (including Frankfurt, London/Slough, Amsterdam and Paris), which account for 50 to 75 per cent of data centre capacity in each country market.
The main growth in data centre capacity, however, will take place in Tier II metro markets. In particular, the Barcelona, Milan and Rome metro markets are forecast to triple the amount of data centre power over the next four years with a further eleven metro markets set to double their power capacity over the same period. New hyperscale data centres are being introduced that will transform the Tier II metro markets, with Data4 Group introducing a 50 MW campus in Warsaw, Merlin Properties introducing a 20 MW facility (scalable up to 100 MW) in Barcelona, and Vantage Data Centers launching a 40 MW facility at Winterthur near Zurich.
However, the report also highlights the environmental concerns raised by the demand for data centre power. According to the report, in Offenbach, near Frankfurt, the introduction of the proposed CloudHQ hyperscale data centre alone will consume as much power as the entire Offenbach region. And in Dublin, data centres are forecast to account for up to 27 per cent of all power grid consumption, with Irish national grid operator Eirgrid imposing a moratorium on new Dublin data centre power connectivity from January 2022 until 2028.
As European Data Centre markets reach maturity there is less space and power available for new facility developments. One solution, suggests the report, is to expand data centres in lower-cost Tier II markets where land is more widely available and power more abundant.
Finally, the new report highlights the advantages of the Nordics region as a location for power-hungry applications – with abundant low-cost renewable energy available addressing environmental concerns using free cooling in a cool climate providing a reduced PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) ratio than for the other traditional metro markets.
