In January 2013, we switched our electricity supply to 100% renewable energy sources. Now, we’re taking another look at the future of the data centre, which is looking greener than ever. Here are some of the ways the industry is doing its bit for the environment, from the bizarre to the simple!
Artificial Reef Data Centres
Microsoft recently filed a patent to create ‘artificial reef data centres’ that will provide an underwater home for ocean life, as well as its servers. This innovation comes with other benefits – the temperature of the data centre’s underwater environment will lead to hugely reduced cooling costs.
These is an extreme way to save energy, but Microsoft aren’t the only company who are realising the benefits of being greener. Here are some of the slightly simpler ways that you can still make a significant impact.
Cooling
Air Conditioning
As well as being more friendly to the environment, eco-friendly data centre design and products can reduce costs. Cooling and air conditioning can lead to huge energy bills, as well as using up plenty of energy. Many companies are realising this and taking steps to alter their design and cooling systems in order to reduce energy use and power their servers more efficiently.
Facebook has taken this a step further and has chosen Luleå in Sweden as the site of one of its data centres, where free air cooling means that over the last year, the company has been able to achieve a power usage effectiveness ratio of 1.09. This means that for every watt spent on IT gear, 0.09 watts are spent on supporting it, making this rating much lower than the data centre industry average of 1.5 to 1.9.
Layout
If, however, you don’t have the time, money or desire to relocate your data centre to a colder or sub-aquatic location… there are still measures to take to become more energy efficient.
Optimising the layout of equipment can save energy and money. For example, designs that allow hot air to be ejected from the data centre can go a long way towards saving money – temperature control by just one degree can increase savings by 4%!
ISO50001
ISO50001 is an international standard, to achieve the standard companies have to take steps to improve their energy performance. It is one of the accreditations LDeX currently holds – view our full accreditation list.
This ISO accreditation helps to reduce CO2 emissions and overall energy consumption.
So, as LDeX, and other data centre providers are focusing on making their sites more efficient, we hope that this will encourage others in the industry to follow suit!
Looking for an environmentally-friendly data centre?
If you’re looking for a carbon neutral colocation solution, LDeX can help! Learn more about our London and Manchester data centres.
