Digital Territories and energy transition: the limits to growth

Abstract

Internet is not magical territory in which flows circulate without any physicality, nothing consumes more space, energy and resources than digital technologies. The cornerstone of the digital technical system, data centers are present everywhere and their construction is accelerating. They are found in city centers, in suburbs, in rural territories, as well as isolated and deserted regions. Whether they are connected to the existing electricity networks, autonomous or incorporated into energy exchange circles with variable perimeters (block, neighborhood, city, territory), they redefine, each time, the energy project of the territories in which they are sited because their electricity consumption is very high. By the yardstick of a pioneering and flourishing American digital industry, but with a weakened energy system, field studies on the West Coast (Oregon, Silicon Valley) and the East Coast (New York) have enabled us to shed light on the challenge of integrating data centers into territorial energy systems in Europe. In this article we propose bringing the energy and spatial excess of the digital world back to the center of the debates on the subject. The article is divided into 3 parts which describe The data center siting strategies and its various location ; 2) How local public authorities grappling with a complex and opaque sector ; 3) The excessive energy consumption of data centers.