University Data Centres: Policy and business case for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

This report evaluates the feasibility of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from university data centres in Canada by analyzing three relocation or modification scenarios and proposing a 'green community cloud' alternative. The study focuses on three institutions: Dalhousie University, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Alberta.

• Scenario 1, which involves moving data centres to remote, zero-carbon facilities powered by small hydroelectric plants, was found to be economically unattractive for all three universities due to high capital expenditures for construction and power plants, resulting in negative net present values (NPVs).
• Scenario 2, relocating data centres to urban settings in provinces with low-emission electrical grids where waste heat can be utilized, also resulted in negative NPVs for all participants, although it performed better than Scenario 1 because it avoided the cost of building a renewable energy facility.
• Scenario 3, which involves modifying existing data centres to capture and utilize waste heat to displace fossil fuel heating, was the most economically attractive option, yielding a positive NPV only for the University of Alberta ($189,579).
• The study concludes that revenue from the sale of carbon credits is generally insufficient to offset the capital and operating costs required to move university data centres to remote, renewably powered locations.
• The report proposes a 'green community cloud' as a more viable alternative, where multiple universities co-locate their ICT assets in a shared facility located in a low-emission province. This model would leverage CANARIE's high-speed network to achieve economies of scale, improve resource utilization through virtualization, and more effectively recover waste heat.
• A significant barrier to the centralization and relocation of university data centres is the fragmented nature of ICT infrastructure, where individual departments or faculty members often operate independent 'data closets' or clusters using research grants.
• The report identifies a lack of detailed power logging as a major obstacle to generating high-quality carbon offsets, noting that none of the studied universities conducted continuous data logging of power consumption for ICT or cooling systems.

APA

Lévesque, J.-F., Caners, C., MacLean, D., & Vetter, T. (2010). University Data Centres: Policy and business case for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/university_data_centres.pdf

Chicago

Lévesque, Jean-François, Christopher Caners, Don MacLean, and Tony Vetter. University Data Centres: Policy and business case for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2010. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/university_data_centres.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lévesque |first1=Jean-François |last2=Caners |first2=Christopher |last3=MacLean |first3=Don |last4=Vetter |first4=Tony |title=University Data Centres: Policy and business case for reducing greenhouse gas emissions |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=September 2010 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/university_data_centres.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lvesque2010university, author = {Lévesque, Jean-François and Caners, Christopher and MacLean, Don and Vetter, Tony}, title = {{University Data Centres: Policy and business case for reducing greenhouse gas emissions}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2010}, month = sep, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/university_data_centres.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }