Data centres, some reportedly located in unoccupied Ontario houses, could have an adverse impact on the environment

A house on a quiet residential street might appear unoccupied, but even if no one actually lives there, the house might be working overtime to ensure everyone has access to the tech they’ve become so accustomed to.

And it appears those houses, as well as major warehouses, are being impacted by harsh weather.

With severe weather events becoming more common, a large portion of provincial infrastructure has been struggling under the weight of environmental pushback. However, one crucial piece of the day-to-day framework has been enduring behind the scenes each time the weather blows in — and that’s data centres. 

For Drew Minns, the impact of extreme weather on data facilities throughout Ontario is his bread and butter, as he runs an organization called Really Good Work, a tech company specializing in assisting digital businesses reduce their environmental footprint. 

“Within the last few years, I started recognizing that the kind of work I do online has a physical environmental impact — because the long and the short of it is — everything we do online requires some form of energy,” Minns told INsauga.com.

As indicated by Minns, all data used for work or leisure has to go somewhere and in Ontario, processing power is located in facilities scattered across the province. However, when extreme weather conditions collide with these facilities, they incur a massive energy debt. 

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“One of the largest uses of power in these data centres is not the servers themselves but, the air conditioning, which is working overtime to keep these servers cool when extreme heat hits,” says Minns. 

Like most forms of grid-based energy consumption, when these data facilities start overburdening themselves, they use reserve power from external sources. For Minns, the most extreme scenario is facilities borrowing power from neighbouring regions like Quebec or the US. 

“On extreme weather days — as we have very much had recently — we have to start drawing power from external sources… So on those hot days where we are at home on our phones just trying to relax on our phones with the AC on, we are burning through tons of energy,” says Minns. 

According to Minns, just one minute of scrolling through Instagram has an environmental impact equivalent to a gas-powered sedan driving 13 meters. 

Minns and his team at Really Good Work have made educating businesses on their ecological footprint a priority, and up to this point, he has noticed businesses with younger teams are substantially more eco-friendly.

However, according to Minns, it’s the old guard of tech enterprise that remains stubborn in the face of change. 

“So the conversation around — well — the value of saving power with website usage is luckily becoming more truthful because that’s what users want nowadays. Younger generations consider sustainability as a core value, I think as a whole though, the industry would rather admit that it’s somebody else’s problem because ignorance is bliss,” says Minns. 

As for where these data centres are located, they are sprinkled throughout southern Ontario in rather non-descript places. According to Minns, there are roughly 50 data facilities throughout the province, many of which are located in warehouses in regions like Vaughn, Oakville and Hamilton.

While the industrial fringes of the Greater Toronto Area are as likely a spot as any to house a massive amount of data servers, Minns indicates that there are even some right under the noses of urban residents. 

“There’s one right in downtown Toronto, there’s one on Front Street, there’s one even at the bottom of Yonge. They’re there because that’s where all the cable infrastructure was put long ago,” says Minns. 

However, beyond the camouflage of a downtown core, data centres have also found a way into neighbourhoods, as Minns indicates that the telecommunications giant Bell has made a habit in the past of storing data centres in residential homes — a phenomenon he calls “Bell Houses.” 

“They look like no one lives there, there’s a lot of these in Toronto, and inside of them, there’s a lot of technology working all at once. So instead of some big, bulky and brutalist building, companies will disguise their data centre as a house somewhere,” says Minns. 

INsauga.com reached out to representatives within Bell for comment on these residential data facilities. Officials within the company responded via email to INsauga.com and stated very clearly, “Bell does not have servers in houses in residential areas.”

However, these facilities — if they exist — impede what Minns believes would be the foundation for a greener future, as remote data facilities in a warehouse can integrate alternative energy solutions more easily than a townhouse. 

“These locations in Ontario use all manner of energy but don’t have to. They can be completely off-grid and instead use solar power — in fact — there are numerous examples of carbon-negative data centres worldwide,” says Minns. 

As for how to introduce these solutions on a provincial scale Minns states,

“How we solve this is by really thinking differently about how we use the internet. We need to think in terms of a more purposeful approach and think about the ‘why’ — why are we doing things the way we have been doing them and how can we change that?”