Solar-powered data centers soon; this crucial change to data center policy may attract realty players

The government is working on a policy for establishing data centers across the country under which, a major push is likely to be given to renewable energy sources such as solar power, since data centers consume a lot of power. Data centers do not have a cross-subsidy to help them tide over high electricity costs and they consume a lot of power. Other than the data consumed by data trays or data racks, the government wants to push for renewable energy consumption for other needs of the building in which the data centre is housed, The Indian Express reported quoting an unidentified official. Under the new nationwide policy, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is also likely to allow states to either follow the policy in total or mould it slightly according to their needs.