August 21, 2016 at 14:56

Green data centers: what do industry giants use to lower energy consumption with their DCs?



    Data centers consume a lot of energy. In the USA, for example, large data centers consume about 2% of all energy that is produced in the country. Energy consumption in the telecommunications sector is constantly growing. In 2014, US data centers used about 70 billion kWh of energy. According to Stanford and Carnegie Melon University, 6.4 million households in the same country consume the same amount. But in general, the energy efficiency of data centers is increasing. For example, from 2010 to 2014, the energy consumption of DCs in the United States grew by only 4%. But over the previous five years, the growth in energy consumption by data centers amounted to 24%.

    Experts believe that by 2020 this figure will increase slightly - by about another 4%. And this despite the fact that most telecommunications giants are actively building new DCs. Why is the increase in energy consumption is not as active as before? The fact is that equipment manufacturers and telecommunication companies began to attach great importance to the energy efficiency of their systems and facilities. Also, energy consumers began to use alternative sources: biogas, solar energy, wind energy, etc. Far from always this is done for the benefit of nature, companies simply try to increase their autonomy in terms of energy supply and use the technologies available to them in order to achieve this.

    Facebook, Apple, Google, eBay, Microsoft and many other corporations have long been gradually introducing green energy into their data centers. Less well-known companies do the same. Let's see what methods various companies use to increase their autonomy in the field of energy supply.

    Apple




    The corporation in its new DC built two “solar farms”. In addition, biogas, which is produced locally, is also used here. The source of organic matter is the fields located near the DC. The methane produced is not used as fuel for, for example, thermal power plants. They are powered by Bloom Energy fuel cells. In the process of obtaining energy in such elements, the hydrogen of a methane molecule reacts with atmospheric oxygen. Electricity is produced, water and small amounts of carbon dioxide are released as by-products.

    Apple's solar power plants (two of them) produce 42 million kWh of energy each. The company receives 84 million kWh of solar energy and about 40 million kWh of energy generated by fuel cells per year. This would be enough to supply energy to approximately 11 thousand households during the year.

    eBay




    This company has built its new DC in Utah. It is connected to the state power system. But the energy from the shared network is used only for backup data storages.

    And the data center itself receives the energy generated by fuel cells. It uses all the same elements from Bloom Energy, in the amount of 30 pieces. This entire power plant is located near the data center, so that the loss in energy transmission is minimal. Solar cells are also installed on the roof of the DC, which also produce energy for the needs of the facility.

    Amazon




    At the end of 2015, Amazon executives announced that a quarter of the company's energy consumption is green energy. By the end of this year, the percentage of energy use of alternative sources will grow up to 40%.

    Amazon has decided to build wind farms for its three new data centers. They have almost been built, and their total capacity is 820,000 MW * h. This is enough to provide energy to the company's data centers in Ohio. The company's wind farms currently operate in North Carolina and Virginia, USA.

    Facebook




    This data center was not just built in Lulea, a region that, as mentioned above, is only 60 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. They decided to build a data center at the confluence of the Lule River into the Gulf of Bothnia. The average annual temperature here is only 1 degree Celsius. By the way, the energy efficiency coefficient (PUE) for this data center is only 1.07, while the average for other data centers is 1.6-1.99.

    The company uses in this data center only the energy received from the hydroelectric power station. She was placed on a nearby river. Thanks to this fact, the company managed to reduce the number of spare generators by 70%.

    Verne global




    The data center of this company is located generally in Iceland. Due to the cool climate of this region, only external air is used for cooling. The company’s data center receives energy from geothermal and hydroelectric power stations.

    Thanks to a combination of a number of factors, this data center managed to become one of the most “green” DCs. In addition, this facility is almost completely autonomous and does not depend on energy supplies from a common network.

    Equinix AM3




    This data center is located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In order to increase energy efficiency while reducing energy consumption, the operator uses Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) and hybrid cooling towers. The cool air of the towers is used to lower the temperature of the hot corridors. Used in the cooling system and water, which removes heat from servers and racks with equipment.

    Heated water is sent directly to the heating system of the University of Amsterdam. It is a win / win system with maximum energy efficiency and minimal environmental impact.

    Green House Data WY2




    The operator of this data center decided to take advantage of the cool climate of the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA, to reduce the energy consumption of the facility. Thanks to this, the PUE reaches only 1.14. In addition, the data center does not depend on an external power system, 100% of the energy consumed by the facility is produced at a wind power station located nearby.

    By the way, in order to reduce the energy consumption of the cooling system of the DC, it is not at all necessary to build it near the Arctic Circle. There are other methods - for example, Google recently loweredpower consumption by the cooling system in its data center, using the weak form of AI from Deepmind. As you can see, the methods may be different, but the result is one and the same: increasing energy efficiency, lowering the cost of maintaining DCs, reducing dependence on the region’s general energy infrastructure.

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