As of today, the first con­tent of the TV strea­ming pro­vi­der is run­ning via its own data centre directly in a wind tur­bine.

A joint coope­ra­tion bet­ween Zat­too and West­fa­len­WIND now shows that cli­mate-fri­endly strea­ming is pos­si­ble. Through the wind farm operator’s green IT pro­ject wind­CORES, the TV strea­ming pro­vi­der Zat­too is brin­ging its data centre directly into a wind tur­bine. As of today, the first con­tent from the TV strea­ming pro­vi­der is run­ning via this inno­va­tive data centre. Zat­too and West­fa­len­WIND are taking on a pio­nee­ring role with this joint coope­ra­tion. As far as is known, this pro­ject is uni­que worldwide.

Glo­bal CO2 emis­si­ons are rising con­ti­nuously and inter­net use is also con­tri­bu­ting more and more to this. Strea­ming ser­vices, cloud appli­ca­ti­ons and video con­fe­ren­cing are also being used more and more. This is made clear not least by the cur­rent Corona situa­tion. Even though many data cen­tres are alre­ady ope­ra­ted in an energy-effi­ci­ent way, there are still a lot of CO2 emis­si­ons from the ongo­ing operation.

At Zat­too, one of the lar­gest TV strea­ming pro­vi­ders in Europe, more than 80 mil­lion hours of TV con­tent are strea­med per month. More than five mil­lion giga­bytes of data are exch­an­ged bet­ween users and the data centre every day. At Zat­too alone, this con­su­mes around one mil­lion kilo­watt hours of elec­tri­city per year, the pro­duc­tion of which usually gene­ra­tes CO2. Zat­too is the­r­e­fore alre­ady working on a solution.

With the wind­CORES pro­ject of the wind farm ope­ra­tor West­fa­len­WIND from Pader­born, Zat­too plans to ope­rate its own data centre directly in a wind power plant in the future. After a test phase, the first con­tents of the TV strea­ming pro­vi­der are run­ning via this inno­va­tive data centre as of today. With this, Zat­too not only uses green elec­tri­city from wind energy for the dis­tri­bu­tion of TV con­tent, but also places its own data centre directly in the wind tur­bine, i.e. where the elec­tri­city is generated.

“With wind­CORES, the wind tur­bi­nes are put to ano­ther sus­tainable use. In this way, we can recon­cile the incre­asing demand for energy due to incre­asing digi­ta­li­sa­tion with the energy tran­si­tion,” says Fiete Dub­berke, Mana­ging Direc­tor IT at WestfalenWIND.

“The idea of brin­ging com­pu­ting capa­city clo­ser to clean energy gene­ra­tion while tap­ping into still unu­sed space capa­city is so simple and obvious and, from our point of view, a pro­ject that will hop­efully set a pre­ce­dent. We want to con­sis­t­ently become a sus­tainable com­pany and encou­rage others to join in,” says Ste­fan Lietsch, Chief Tech­no­logy Offi­cer at Zat­too and respon­si­ble for the project.

At the end of 2020, Zattoo’s first ser­vers moved into the wind tur­bine at West­fa­len­WIND. In this first phase, some important tests were first car­ried out on Zattoo’s sys­tems and pro­ces­ses. This mor­ning, the first ser­vers were then put into ope­ra­tion. In the next phase, Zat­too wants to find out whe­ther wind­CORES can meet the company’s own high stan­dards of sta­bi­lity and relia­bi­lity. This is extre­mely important for Zat­too, as a pro­vi­der of live tele­vi­sion, to ensure that its own ser­vice can be used around the clock. Gra­du­ally, Zat­too plans to run more and more con­tent via the data centre in the wind tur­bine. As the first strea­ming pro­vi­der in the world to move its ser­vers into a wind tur­bine, Zat­too is ente­ring com­ple­tely new ter­ri­tory with this pro­ject. If the expec­ta­ti­ons for the pro­ject are ful­fil­led, Zat­too plans to make the wind tur­bine the main loca­tion for its own data centre in the future.

About Zat­too

Zat­too (www​.zat​too​.com) is one of the lea­ding TV strea­ming pro­vi­ders in Europe with around 3 mil­lion monthly users. Foun­ded in 2005, the com­pany employs over 170 peo­ple and has its head­quar­ters in Zurich and ano­ther loca­tion in Ber­lin. Users in Switz­er­land, Ger­many and Aus­tria watch all popu­lar TV chan­nels in HD and Full HD qua­lity as well as a variety of video-on-demand con­tent via Zat­too. Zat­too is available on almost all end devices, inclu­ding smart TVs, PCs and lap­tops, strea­ming play­ers as well as smart­phones and tablets. In addi­tion to free use, Zat­too also offers time-shifted TV func­tions and EU-wide strea­ming in its paid sub­scrip­ti­ons. Since 2012, Zat­too has also offe­red its tech­no­logy to media com­pa­nies and net­work ope­ra­tors world­wide as a TV-as-a-ser­vice plat­form. The Swiss TX Group, a digi­tal hub and net­work of media and plat­forms, has held a stake in Zat­too since 2008 and has held over 50 per cent since 2019.

Press cont­act

Anto­nia Mann, PR Mana­ger, +49 151 54 78204, press@zattoo.com

You can down­load our logo here:https://​bit​.ly/​3​8​M​c​fI8
For more infor­ma­tion:https://​zat​too​.com/​c​o​m​p​a​n​y​/​p​r​e​ss/
Also fol­low us on Lin­ke­dIn.

About West­fa­len­WIND IT

wind­CORES is a brand of West­fa­len­WIND IT GmbH & Co​.KG, which belongs to the West­fa­len­WIND Group. The group, based in Pader­born and Lich­tenau, ope­ra­tes and mana­ges around 170 wind tur­bi­nes with a total instal­led capa­city of 350 MW. It also has its own elec­tri­city sales divi­sion, a pho­to­vol­taic divi­sion and its own ser­vice team for the main­ten­ance of wind tur­bi­nes. With wind­CORES, West­fa­len­WIND wants to make the digi­tal world “gree­ner” and offer an inno­va­tive solu­tion for a dis­tri­bu­ted data centre infra­struc­ture of the future. The con­cept for ope­ra­ting cli­mate-neu­tral data cen­tres in wind tur­bi­nes was deve­lo­ped by the company’s sub­si­diary West­fa­len­WIND IT GmbH & Co​.KG in coope­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­sity of Pader­born (SICP) and regis­tered as a patent. In 2019, the idea was awarded the Ger­man Data Centre Prize.

Press cont­act

Daniel Saage, com­pany spo­kesper­son, +49 177 84 85 868, d.saage@westfalenwind.de

Sonya Har­ri­son, Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, +49 177 3432 052, s.harrison@westfalenwind.de

For more infor­ma­tion: https://​www​.wind​cores​.de/