Google to expand data centre in Finland and tap access to green power

A lobby group linked to the tech giant had expressed concerns that planning issues could stifle expansion in Ireland

Google is planning to spend €1bn to expand its data centre in Finland, citing easy access to green energy.

The expansion plans in the Nordic nation come after a Google-linked lobby group flagged concerns in Ireland that issues here with planning and power supply would stifle its ability to expand in this country.

Data centres are controversial because of their heavy energy usage, which is likely to become even more pronounced as networks are powered up for even higher-usage artificial intelligence (AI).

However, proponents say data centres are a necessary condition of a shift to a digital economy and in many instances power used for cloud-based computing replaces activities that previously would have involved a car journey or other energy consumption.

Cloud Infrastructure Ireland, a subgroup of the employers’ group Ibec that Google is aligned with, has previously warned that proposals to restrict data centre developments in Ireland would hurt new investment here.

Google has a data centre in Ireland, commissioned in 2012, and the company has invested around €500m in the facility here.

Last year it signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for 58MW of newto-the grid capacity from the Tullabeg Solar Farm in Co Wexford.

The expansion of its facility in Finland will increase staffing there by a quarter to 500 people this year and next, a spokesman said by email yesterday.

Google declined to disclose what impact the investment will have on data capacity at the site.

The facility is located in Hamina, on the nation’s south coast.

The region offers a good supply of renewable power, which is vital for the firm’s target to run every office and data centre on green energy by the end of this decade.

The tech giant is also pioneering a project with the local utility to feed excess heat into the network of pipes that is used to heat homes in the area.

The technology, called district heating, is common in parts of northern Europe.

If successful, it could help to guide future investments, Ben Townsend, Google’s global head of infrastructure strategy and sustainability, said in an interview.

“It may start to steer new site selection opportunities to locations where waste heat recovery and district heating is more readily implementable,” he said.

The pilot project will provide the recovered heat for free to utility Haminan Energia Oy.

Google is not the first tech firm in the Nordic region to offer its heat to local energy companies.

Microsoft joined the Finnish utility Fortum Oyj in 2022 to capture and distribute the energy source to the local network. Stockholm is also using heat from data centres for the same purpose.