How Are Modern Data Centres Reducing Their Carbon Footprint

It has been predicted by many scientists as well as environment conservationists that modern day data centres are likely to overtake airline companies in terms of the gross carbon footprint within the next few years. That is why, it has become extremely important for data centre owners to implement means for making their facilities more energy efficient and eco-friendly.

Although there are many data centre facilities in UK which have PUE (power usage effectiveness) and conserve a significant amount of energy, there is still room for making improvements in the existing systems. Current estimates state that about 5 percent of Europe’s yearly energy bill and 1 percent of the total energy used by the whole world is actually spent on cooling computers.

During the late 1990s, electricity was relatively cheaper than it is today. As a result, data centre equipment and racks were installed by following an ad-hoc approach. Besides that, CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units were generally run using maximum power 24x7. In the modern times, however, these design models have been enhanced with the implementation of environment friendly practices. To be exact, there have been 3 primary areas for enhancement:

• Virtualisation (efficiency of IT resource)
  
  
• HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning)
  
  
• Power delivery (UPS efficiency power factor correction)

Among these three areas, HVAC has the strongest potential to undergo reform. It has been estimated that regulating it can successfully drive down the PUE to rather impressive levels.

Blowing Cold and Hot :

One of the oldest design alterations made for enhancing the efficiency of air flow was introduction of the cold and hot aisles. Instead of attempting to bring the temperature of a data centre facility down to 19 degrees Celsius, equipment pieces are placed strategically to ensure that cold air flowing in from sub floor plenum gets channelled to the facade of storage area networks (SANs) and servers (practically the cold aisle). On the other hand, the exhaust hot air is channelled into a particular area where the CRACs are kept. Nowadays, facility owners also use the beneficial functions of data centre grommet for segregating cold and hot air.

Evaporative Cooling :

In the recent years, data centre managers have started to utilise another option for reducing energy consumption as well as operating costs. This option (or process, to be exact) is known as adiabatic cooling, and it is brought about by the use of CRECs (computer room evaporative coolers). This technology helps to maintain optimum HVAC conditions by drawing warm air through wet filters, which ultimately causes evaporation of water and lowers the temperature of ambient air.