Rapidly rising energy prices, and supply issues, are creating new risks for energy intensive organisations across Europe, and telecommunications operators, datacentres and hyperscalers are far from exempt. To protect service margins and assure future growth and success, many organisations are partnering with Altibox Carrier and relocating their operations to Norway, opening the door to abundant, cost-effective, sustainable energy to power their businesses long term.
Europe is facing a perfect storm of high interest rates, double-digit inflation and rapidly rising energy and fuel prices. These macro-economic factors continue to increase operating costs for businesses of all types and sizes, including telecommunications providers, datacentre companies and hyperscalers.
To emphasise the scale of the challenge, electricity prices have risen across Europe by almost 30% (29.7%) since the beginning of 2023 according to Statistica, with natural gas prices up more than 50% in the same period due to the Russian conflict in the Ukraine.
According to Europe’s official statistics agency Eurostat, these figures mean that energy prices are at their highest in the region since the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) was introduced in 1997. Even though energy prices are now starting to level off, high prices are adding to the current high cost of doing business.
Telecommunications operators are on the front line
Spiralling energy prices are being felt most keenly by companies in energy-intensive industries, notably including telecommunications providers, datacentres and hyperscalers. This is evidenced by research from UK credit agency Experian, which shows that organisations in energy intensive sectors are currently more likely to fall into arrears than less energy intensive organisations such as financial services and professional services companies.
To protect service margins and ensure continued profitability in this tough economic environment, telecommunications operators and service providers will inevitably need to pass rising costs on to consumers in the form of higher service prices. However, the ability to negotiate the lowest possible energy tariffs today is also critical, as is long term mitigation of energy price risks.
Banish the spectre of rising energy prices with Altibox Carrier
In the past, relocating apps, services and workloads to Norway would have been unthinkable due to the country’s distance from major European comms hubs. However, Altibox Carrier’s super-high-speed network means that data can be transported around Europe within milliseconds, making it possible to relocate services, data, and workloads to Norway in a way that is completely transparent for business and residential customers.
Taking advantage of the Altibox Carrier network and migrating workloads to Norway in this way gives service providers access to the country’s abundant green energy resources. Not only that, but Norway is expected to generate a significant energy surplus in the near future, protecting against the energy shortages and price rises that are common in other areas of Europe.
As a result of Norway’s abundant green energy, energy costs in the country – which are currently 40% to 50% less than other areas of Europe – are likely to remain among the least expensive, if not the least expensive, for many years to come. This will improve our customers’ bottom lines and fuel their ability to compete in European and global markets.
How Norway’s climate and green innovations enable further cost savings
Using the Altibox Carrier network to migrate workloads to Norway can also bring further cost savings for service providers thanks to the country’s cold climate. In particular, local Norwegian datacentres and hyperscalers typically use cold water from fjords and cold air to cool networking, compute, and storage equipment, reducing cooling energy consumption from an industry average of 40-80% to just 5%.
Access cost-effective energy for the long term
As the gateway to Norway’s abundant green energy resources, Altibox Carrier’s network provides greater certainty for service provider – both in terms of future access to energy and stability for energy prices. Another critical benefit of the Altibox Carrier network is the ability to deliver excellent, SLA-backed performance for bandwidth-hungry and latency sensitive services across Europe, without congestion issues that are common in the Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris (FLAP) ring.
To find out more about how Altibox Carrier’s network is enabling service providers to migrate workloads to Norway and take advantage of the country’s abundant green energy resources, please visit the website, or contact the Altibox Carrier team for a meeting.
