North Rhine-Westphalia
Data Center as a Business Model for Providers
Data centers are new growth drivers in infrastructure. But is it worthwhile for municipal utilities to enter the market? And which business model fits?
Gelsenwasser AG is one of the largest German utility companies with a municipal mandate.
We examined whether establishing our own data center is viable as a business model. Three options were evaluated: self-use, co-location, or cloud infrastructure with Gelsen-Net.
For this, we assessed available spaces and buildings in the existing portfolio against our criteria catalog for Tier 3 and cloud data centers. Special focus was on energy availability and waste heat potentials.
Results:
Location and space assessment
Waste heat analysis
Technical model data centers per location
Investment and engineering concepts
Financial models for three business options
Market benchmarking
Cloud infrastructure concept with Gelsen-Net
Regional demand analysis