MORE COMPUTING, FEWER QUESTIONS
As part of its Sustainable City strategy, Omnes supports entrepreneurs developing low-carbon urban real assets. The fund favours developers who master carbon-reduction levers across the entire lifecycle of their infrastructure, from design to operation.
“Today, renewable energy cannot be the sole power source for a data center due to its intermittency. However, advances in battery storage systems should allow a growing share of renewables in data center energy supply;”
Urban data centers offer more varied and often easier to activate decarbonisation levers than those located in isolated areas. Their integration into already built environments enables the rehabilitation or retrofit of existing sites, limiting the artificialisation of new land.
“We are already studying data center projects on previously built sites, for example to revitalise business parks, explains Morgane Honikman, Partner, Sustainable Cities, Omnes.
Sourcing data centers with low-carbon energy
Omnes carefully assesses the energy procurement strategies of the developers it supports. In Europe, data centers have a lower carbon footprint than in the United States thanks to an energy mix dominated by nuclear and renewables.
While it is impossible today to power data centers exclusively with renewables, due to intermittency and the need for continuous supply, advances in batteries and storage will progressively increase the share of renewable energy feeding data centers.
“Energy represents between 20 and 30 % of a data center’s operating costs. Any reduction in consumption generates massive economic gains, illustrating the natural alignment between economic and environmental interests.”
Europe’s data center electricity consumption is expected to double by 2030, reaching 200 terawatt-hours
200 twh
Source: Le Shift Project, report published 1/10/2025
First published in Scope Winter 2025