Apple has announced the construction of a second data center in Denmark, as a similar facility is held up in Ireland.
Expected to be operational in 2019, Apple’s new Danish data center will be powered by 100% renewable energy. It will be built to similar specifications as the Jutland facility opening later this year, in terms of size, design and energy consumption. However, the new Aabenraa data center may grow even larger in the future, to meet the data consumption and storage needs of European users of iTunes, iMessage, Siri, and other internet services.
Phase One of the Aabenraa data center is expected to be completed within two years at a cost of approximately 6 billion kroner. Construction employees will total approximately 300, while the data center itself will require up to 100 full-time employees when it is completed.
Erik Stannow, Apple’s Nordic manager, pointed to clean and reliable energy in Denmark as the primary factors for choosing to put two enormous data centers in the country.
“We’re thrilled to be expanding our data center operations in Denmark, and investing in new sources of clean power,” he said.
“The planned facility in Aabenraa, like all of our data centers, will run on 100% renewable energy from day one, thanks to new clean energy sources we’re adding,” he noted, adding, “The reliability of the Danish grid is one of the main reasons we will operate two sites in Denmark.”
Apple had planned a large data center in Ireland to help meet data storage requirements for European consumers. However, that facility has been held up in the Irish courts, having encountered opposition from environmentalists, despite the fact that the Athenry data center is planned to run on 100% renewable energy, powered by energy captured from ocean waves.
Apple did not confirm that the new Danish data center in Aabenraa was being planned to replace the Irish data center, should the July 30 hearing to determine the fate of the facility in the Irish court not go in the company’s favor.
The company has made investments in energy research in Denmark as well, partnering with Aarhus University in Denmark to fund research into biogas and extracting usable energy from agriculture. The university’s agricultural research facilities are located near the Apple Jutland data center site.
Denmark is becoming a leading choice in data center locations for U. S. technology companies, with Facebook and Google also planning data storage facilities in the country.
