By Tatu Tuominen, Director of Public Affairs, atNorth
Collaboration between utilities, suppliers, data center operators and local businesses represents the blueprint for wide ranging community benefit.
Challenges to data center development are increasing in some locations. Local objections often stem from concerns about perceived high energy and water usage and the opinion they bring very few jobs or other economic and social benefits to the surrounding local communities. To overcome these challenges, better communication with local stakeholders is essential, beginning from the initial stages of project planning. However, more than warm words are needed. Community engagement must translate into real tangible benefits valued by local citizens, and these must be considered from the outset.
A New Model
The key to achieving win-win outcomes for all parties, including the people living around these vital components of the digital infrastructure, lies in fostering partnerships up and down the supply chain. Putting community engagement at the core of data center planning means adopting a mindset focused on partnership from the very beginning. This involves identifying the key participants throughout the supply chain and determining how they can collaborate to deliver solutions that benefit all parties. For example, atNorth and Nokia have a long-standing partnership, which originated with atnorth deploying Nokia’s data center switches to deliver high speed connectivity across its sites in Iceland and Sweden. This relationship evolved into a deeper collaboration as Nokia moved into atNorth’s FIN02 site in Helsinki to support its own cloud infrastructure. But more importantly, both parties and the wider environment benefit from the highly energy efficient nature of Nokia’s switches and atNorth’s data center, reducing pressure on the grid and reducing carbon emissions for everyone’s benefit.
Taking this a step further, it is crucial to consider not only the immediate customers and suppliers of the data center but also local organisations which can benefit from the data center’s direct and indirect outputs. Partnering with Kesko Corporation, a major retailer in Finland, means that waste heat from the data center will be recycled to heat a neighbouring supermarket. This repurposed heat meets almost all the heating requirements of the store. Utilising the heat from the data center reduces emissions by 200 tonnes of CO2 per year whilst keeping local shoppers warm in the coldest winters. This collaboration reduces costs, improves environmental performance and delivers real benefit to a local business and the community.
As Antti Kokkonen, Kesko’s Director of Energy, explains “One of the key goals of our ambitious sustainability strategy is to reduce CO2 emissions resulting from the heating of our properties. This collaboration, in just one store, reduces Kesko’s overall emissions from district heating by 0.9 percent, one of our most significant CO2 reduction initiatives last year.”
Securing Investment Locally
A common concern among local citizens is that data center energy consumption will result in increased bills for their domestic energy use. However, this feared negative impact is not borne out by experience in the Nordics. In fact, the partnership approach once again can deliver benefits to local communities.
Data centers play an important role in the long-term resilience of Finland’s power infrastructure and its economic growth as a whole.
Data centers provide stable demand, which can justify necessary investments in grid and generation capacity. This stability helps regional energy providers increase sustainable generation and ensure economically viable production. For instance, atNorth secured an agreement with Finnish electricity distributor Caruna Espoo Oy to provide access to 45MW of reliable power for its FIN02 data center. This investment supports Caruna’s ongoing development and modernization of its power infrastructure, which benefits the whole area and enhances the long-term resilience of Finland’s power infrastructure.
Kosti Rautiainen, EVP Customers and New Ventures at Caruna, recently commented, “Data centers play an important role in the long-term resilience of Finland’s power infrastructure and its economic growth as a whole. atNorth’s investment in Espoo supports the development of a carbon-free energy system.”
Beyond utility management, data centers are significant creators of new jobs for local communities. The strategic siting of data centers, often on previously disused industrial sites, can help regenerate areas by attracting new jobs and creating new reasons for people to stay, rather than gravitating toward inner-city roles. Better prospects for locals, improved education and support for tech-start-up ecosystems are just some of the reasons municipal authorities are so keen to attract data centers. Acting as a magnet for investment, job creation and growth, a data center can have a significant impact in transforming local economies.
In the Icelandic town of Akureyri, Mayor Ásthildur recently credited the arrival of a data center with not only delivering €212 million of investment in the town but increasing the number of international transport links as visitors come to the site and stay and spend money there. The new data center will also provide heat to a specially designed greenhouse where school children can participate in hands-on experiments in sustainable cultivation of a wide range of crops. As a result, in addition to the high-skilled positions, a data center supports multiple trades and services locally. These include, but are not limited to, local electricians, plumbers, and carpenters, as well as security guards, caterers, and hospitality staff.
The success stories illustrate how a comprehensive partnership approach can truly create a blueprint for the future of data center development and operation. Collaboration from the initiation of data center development plans to includes heat reuse for a nearby commercial or domestic buildings, and infrastructure investment supported by the local utility, exemplifies an “ecosystem mindset” that contributes to resilient local infrastructure and supports broader environmental and economic goals. This mindset extends to support of local culture and society, often bringing new sponsorship to keep local teams, traditions and events alive. Our multi-year sponsorship of the annual Akureyri Run, for example, ensures the continuation of this major local event. Engagements like these effectively place real community engagement at the heart of data center building and operation.
Nokia’s Vice President for Network Infrastructure North Europe, Marika Mentula, highlights; “As we continue to push toward more sustainable operations, particularly the context of increasingly high-density compute, it’s crucial to partner with data center providers that think beyond infrastructure. We’ve found that atNorth’s ecosystem mindset truly sets them apart. They’re not just building data centers; they’re contributing to resilient local infrastructure and supporting broader environmental and economic goals.”
About this Series
This column is produced by atNorth, a leading Nordic data center operator. Through expert analysis and industry insight, atNorth examines the political, regulatory, economic, and technological forces shaping Europe’s digital infrastructure landscape, helping business and technology leaders navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving market.
