Telia Estonia is planning to build a solar plant to cut costs at one of its data centres.
The Estonian subsidiary of the Nordic telecommunications giant Telia is building the solar power plant to power its data centre in Laagri, Estonia, an undertaking that the company estimates will pay back its investment over the next six to seven years. Laagri is a suburb near the capital city Tallinn.
The construction job was entrusted to local solar projects developer Pro-Solar, which will build the plant next to Telia's data centre in Harju County, northern Estonia. The new solar power plant is expected to be operational by the end of the summer.
The new plant will not cover all of the data centre’s power consumption needs, but, the project partners say, it will help to reduce electricity costs. It appears that during summer periods, data centres tend to use more electricity on cooling; power coming from the solar park will make up for this.
Of course cost reduction is only part of the story. Given the continuing growth in power consumption by data centres, there is also the challenge of keeping power clean, a challenge this project may help Telia Estonia to meet.