Carbon neutral streaming with Zattoo & Windcores

The future of television is carbon neutral. “The idea of bringing computing capacity closer to energy production while still tapping into unused space .
What’s this project about?
Since 2020, one of Zattoo’s data centres has been located right inside a wind turbine. With the windCORES project of the wind farm operator Westfalenwind, we’re not just relying on renewable electricity from wind energy. The data that is generated when streaming via Zattoo runs through our own data centre, located right inside a wind turbine. This project is a real innovation and the first of its kind in the world.
Why is this so important?
Zattoo has around 3 million active users per month and up to 350,000 users per day. At peak times and during certain TV highlights, there are even around 600,000 users. In addition, Zattoo also makes its technology available as a TV-as-a-service platform to media companies and network operators worldwide. In Germany, Zattoo’s customers include 1&1 Telecom and NetCologne, and in Switzerland the network operator Salt Mobile. This makes Zattoo one of the largest TV streaming providers in Europe. More than 80 million hours are streamed via Zattoo every month. This generates more than 5 million gigabytes of data – every day! This meant our old data centres were using around 1 million kilowatt hours per year.
What’s the current status and what’s happening next?
The move of our first servers into the wind turbine took place at the end of 2020. First, we carried out various tests on our systems before putting the first servers into operation in mid-January. For our next step, we want to find out whether operation can be as stable, secure and reliable as it is in traditional data centres. This is extremely important for us because we have to ensure our service can be used around the clock. Gradually, more and more content will run through this green data centre. As the first streaming provider worldwide to move its servers into a wind turbine, we’re entering completely new territory with this project. If our expectations for the project are fulfilled, it’s likely the wind turbine will be our main location for our data centre.