The IT Ministry is in discussions with the Ministries of Power, and New and Renewable Energy and other relevant agencies to prepare a roadmap to ensure the growing number of data centers in India – the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Adequate power supply has been offered, a top government official said on Monday.
“Today, the biggest question is the availability of electricity … As we adopt AI more and more, (the question is) do we have an adequate electricity supply for power – otherwise, where do you make sure that this electricity supply comes into one? As such we are able to address the issue,” IT Secretary S Krishnan said.
His comments are significant given the huge energy needs of the data centers that big technology companies are building around the world due to the phenomenal popularity of AI solutions that rely on such facilities for computing power. According to the International Energy Agency, data center electricity use could double by 2026, making the challenge of becoming net zero or carbon negative by 2030 even more unattainable for companies.
This has forced companies like Google and Microsoft — which have big stakes in the AI game — to sign contracts with nuclear power plants to buy power for their data centers.
In India, the government is looking to subsidize the setting up of data centers to take advantage of the AI boom, and to ease access to computing capacity for smaller organizations such as start-ups and research institutions. According to a September report by S&P Global, India currently has 1-3 GW of leased data center capacity, which is higher than other emerging markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Most of the capacity is in Mumbai (55 per cent), Chennai and Delhi-NCR with around 12 per cent each. Savills, a real estate consultancy, expects an additional supply of more than 2,000 MW of capacity between 2024 and 2028.
Power consumption and associated infrastructure costs are a major part of the capital and operating expenses of data centers. According to CareEdge Ratings, 40 percent of such facilities go to capital electrical systems and 65 percent of operating costs are due to electricity consumption. It costs Rs 60 to 70 crore to set up a data center of 1 megawatt capacity in India.
Naturally, the country is looking at the energy mix it can offer India’s data centers, where data centers are looking primarily at renewable energy to run operations. For example, the Adani Group will supply around 61 MW of electricity to Google’s cloud operations in India from its upcoming solar-wind hybrid project at Khawda in Gujarat.
According to a report released by Tata Power in September, the company is planning two pumped storage plants (PSPs) with a cumulative capacity of about 3,000 MW near Pune, for which the Central Transmission Utility of India (CTUIL) has received applications for drilling. 1,400 MW from data center load in Mumbai in January 2027.
“Applications are under process and a connection to the South Columb S/s is proposed to address such a large power requirement,” the Transmission Planning Authority said in a September report.
In October, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) discussed the expected increase in power demand from data centers at a meeting of the National Committee for Transmission (NCT), where CEA Chairman Ghanshyam Prasad directed the Power Data Management and Load Forecasting Division to study the load pattern. of data centers.
Disha had assessed a major grid incident in North India this June, which caused a load shedding of around 16.5 GW. A Grid-India executive said the NCT needs to review existing load modeling approaches in light of changed load behaviour.
“Furthermore, as large volumes of electrolysers and data center loads are also envisaged to be connected at the ISTS (Inter-State Transmission System) level in the near future, it is important that adequate reactive power compensation is planned near the ISTS load feeding stations,” the executive said. Reactive power compensation near load centers helps prevent tripping and loadshedding by stabilizing voltage levels and reducing stress on the grid.
Data center developers in India aim to increase energy efficiency, as indicated by low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratios. In India, PUE averages around 1.9 while for green data centers, PUE is as low as 1.3.