I am sure the term “green data center” seems like an oxymoron to most people. Seriously, how could a building which uses as much power as a mid-sized town ever be considered green? In fact, current industry statistics say that data centers consume approximately 2% of the total power usage in the United States! That is an increase from 1.5% in 2007 and is predicted to continue to rise with the increasing adoption of smart devices, tablets and other digital technologies. (Thank you Internet of Things!)
Data centers are consumptive by nature because their main objective is to keep conditioned power and cool air flowing in the facility so that the IT systems have the correct temperature and no interruption in service. This is accomplished by transforming massive amounts of inconsistent utility power into clean, reliable power as well as generating huge amounts of cold conditioned air to ‘feed’ IT equipment. Additionally, once the cool air is digested by the equipment, it exits as hot exhaust air which also must be somehow mitigated by the facility-which typically results in yet more cooling (and power) usage.
Before any green improvements can be made to a data center, first it is important to establish a benchmark. Many industry leaders suggest that a good method for understanding data center efficiency is to establish the building’s Power Usage Effectiveness ratio (PUE)-which is the total amount of power being used by the building, as divided by the power being consumed directly by the IT equipment.
A perfect PUE is 1.0, which means that for every one unit of cooling supplied to a facility 100% of this is going through the equipment. While a PUE of 1.0 is not achievable, as there will always need to be surplus power supplied for things like lighting, a smaller PUE number indicates better efficiency. In the United States, the average PUE for data centers is 1.8 according to The Uptime Institute, which indicates an oversupply of 80%.
Unfortunately, because air conditioning systems also use significant amounts of power, a high PUE may also indicate that a facility is over-supplying cool air to meet the demands of the IT load and therefore using unnecessary power. However, the good news is that by continually monitoring and analyzing power and cooling utilization, a data center operator can implement changes to save both energy and money.
Location, Location, Location!
Some of the biggest builders of data centers are leveraging locations in colder climates to help reduce their energy consumption and shrink their carbon footprint. Data center operators often look for geographies with cool weather and low humidity so they can take advantage of using outside air temperatures for ‘free air’ data center cooling. Additionally, geographies which offer renewable energy such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power are also desirable because it means that the cost of operation is significantly less expensive. DataSite’s new Boise data center is one such data center that has the best of both with hydroelectric power and the ability to leverage the outside temperatures during most of the year in order to minimize energy utilization and cooling costs.
Allowing nature to do the work that a HVAC system would normally do is effective, more efficient, and best of all, provides a huge increase in environmental sustainability versus a standard data center design. In the United States, different geographies have varying ‘free air cooling hours’ available where if this strategy was embraced, nature would do the majority of the work with the primary HVAC system can be used as emergency backup. The following image, provided by The Green Grid®, shows free cooling hours available in the US:
In addition to location, there are other things data center operators do can help reduce the overall carbon footprint of their facilities. Just like at home, you turn off lights when you aren’t in the room, recycle your soda cans and newspapers and use paper instead of plastic for your grocery bags. The same rules apply for the data center industry, if everyone does a little bit it can add up to a lot. With that in mind, data centers are here to stay-but there are ways to lessen their environmental impact.
Get Greener!
Here are some tips for data centers to decrease their carbon footprint:
- Utilize hot/cold aisle cabinet layout
- Reduce bypass airflow (conditioned air not entering IT equipment) by using blanking panels and brushed floor grommets on raised floors
- Plenum return conversion for direct coupling to expedite removal of hot air to AC units
- Utilizing natural cooling opportunities
- Use high efficiency chiller plants with variable frequency drives
- Implement alternate electricity and fuel sources when possible
- Change to LED efficient, timed lighting
- Using the hot exhaust air from equipment for heating, etc.
- Recycle waste – cardboard, paper products, metals such as aluminum and pallets
Sustainability is made up a many pieces all working together to help lessen waste and increase energy efficiency across the board. Not only is it good for the environment, it is just good business! DataSite is proud of our ongoing efforts working to reduce our carbon footprint while providing increased savings we can pass on to our customers.
To learn more about our “green” efforts please visit our Sustainability page or review our “Green Brochure“!
