Assessing the environmental impact of operating a Swedish data centre in subarctic climate

Given the rapid growth of the data centre industry, it is essential to understand the impact of providing the data centre services. Due to a high level of complexity and heterogeneity of the data centres, combined with low environmental data transparency, it is challenging to estimate such impact. Thus, this paper provides life cycle assessment of a high-resolution model of Boden Type Data Centre (BTDC) based partly on empirical data from operating the BTDC in the north of Sweden to visualise the related environmental consequences. Seven impact categories were selected to provide a robust overview of results and analysed in detail: acidification, climate change, particulate matter/respiratory organics, resource use – fossil, resource use – minerals and metals, water use and land use. The results show that most of the impact across these impact categories was caused by the servers used. This is followed to a lesser extent by the operation of the data centre. The paper lists the components contributing to majority of environmental load and specific materials and processes behind them. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that prolonging the usage of servers from 3 years to 5 years leads to significant reductions in impact. Additionally, it is shown that the location of the data centre is crucial, as it is closely linked to the availability of energy resources.