Microsoft Sweden announced it has chosen to withdraw its permit application for the construction and operation of backup power units at their data center in Staffanstorp. The reason: a greatly increased demand for the company's cloud services and secure data storage, which means that there is a need for a larger data center in the region than the one planned in Staffanstorp.
"A rapidly increasing demand for secure data storage and cloud services in Sweden and globally places new demands on larger data centers with stable backup power options. Staffanstorp is no exception, and therefore Microsoft has determined that the permit application for the construction and operation of reserve power for a facility with the planned capacity (70 MW added power) will not be sufficient to meet the need for future expansion in the region. It is against this background, in combination with valuable views from the local community, that we have decided to withdraw our permit application", the company said on its Swedish website.
Looking for a new location
Microsoft says it willl continue to operate and expand operations in their Staffanstorp data center, but this will only happen with the reserve power units that are already in place today. The company has already begun looking for a new suitable data center location in southern Sweden.
Microsoft - which has made a global commitment to get rid of the use of diesel by 2030 at the latest - operates their data centers in Sweden with 100 percent fossil-free energy and are the first data centers where the backup power units are mainly powered with Preem Evolution Diesel Plus, the first Nordic Ecolabelled diesel that contains 50 percent renewable raw materials. Nevertheless, local opposition to the deployment of backup diesel generators might be one of the reasons the company choose to halt expansion at Staffanstorp and look for a new location.
