SDIA on Digital Sustainability

Can we use data centers to stabilize the electric grid? In today's episode our host Mohan Gandhi welcomes Philippe Vassilopoulos, Director of Product Development at  EPEX SPOT.  The European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT SE and its affiliates operate physical short-term electricity markets in Central Western Europe, the United Kingdom and in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Over 300 members trade electricity across twelve countries on EPEX SPOT. Together Mo and Philippe are investigating the opportunity to source energy flexibility from data centers. By doing this they aim to integrate data centers deeper into the electricity grid. Their approach promises to have many positive effects including more stability in the grid, less costs in grid reenforcement, drive down costs for electricity overall, integrate more renewables and thereby drive down CO2 emissions.  Want to know more? Download the Executive Summary of the SDIA Report "The Utility of the Future" here: Chapters: [00:05] Intro [02:05] Data Centers and their bigger role in die energy flexibility markt [06:46] Next Steps for data centers to enter flexibility markets [14:25] Grid Congestions. How to solve them, where do they take place and how can data centers help? [24:22] Data Centers as provider for energy flexibility [26:01 ] Reducing CO2 emission by moving compute loads [27:33] Using data centers to integrate more renewables into our system [25:53] Closing Word from Philippe

Are data centers the future of heating for cities like Amsterdam? In today's episode our host Mohan Gandhi welcomes Rolf Brink, CEO of Asperitas. If you haven't met Rolf yet - he is one of the few visionaries actively working to get heat from data centers into your living room. To recover the heat Asperitas developed an innovative immersion cooling technology. Listen to our the podcast to hear how the company was created, what benefits immersion cooling technology has for data centers and what the opportunities are in the Amsterdam region. Want to know more? Download the Executive Summary of the SDIA Report "The Utility of the Future" here: Chapters: [00:05] Intro [05:53] The speciality about immersion cooling for data centers [10:05] Immersion Cooling, Heat Utilization and the Design of Data Centers [12:45] 5G and Edge and what it means for future data center facilities [22:59] Opportunities in the Amsterdam and Holland Region [24:55] Deep Dive into Heat Utilization from data centers [26:00] The relevance of heating grids for data centers [29:49] Circular Economy and the eco system around heat utilization [34:36] What role do co-locations play? [38:49] High density facilities - Where Immersion Cooling fits perfectly [46:29] Barriers for immersion cooling

In today's episode our host Mohan Gandhi welcomes Christoph Buchli. As webdeveloper with more than a decade of experience Christoph is one of the founders of Helio AG. A Swiss startup that is developing an open cloud computing market where capacity from across all data centers can be traded like on a stock exchange or the electricity market. Chapters: [00:33] Helio AG introduction [02:00] Low utilization of servers in data centers [04:20] Reduced prices for cloud capacity despite increased demand [06:25] Why can a marketplace works today. [11:40] Benefits and barriers for an open market. [15:15] How will digital infrastructure change in the next 5 years? [18:45] Changes needed in the fibre network [21:15] Learning from and working with the electricity market