IT Room Infra 2018: data centers are committed to sustainability

Servers, placed in endless rows of racks, consume a significant amount of energy in modern data centers. The sector therefore has a significant environmental impact. But during it IT Room Infra event it became clear that the data center world is increasingly responding to further sustainability and is therefore taking its responsibility.

By: Dimitri Reijerman

The opening keynote from Jon Summers of RISE North, where FHI talked to earlier, dove straight into the matter. With the help of open source software and hardware, it appears to be very possible to map out what a data center uses in detail. This ranges from active monitoring of the cooling installations to measuring the power consumption of the IT hardware. Because before a data center takes further steps towards sustainability, it is a must to first map everything out thoroughly. After all: measuring is knowing.

The theme of sustainability permeated almost the entire program of the 2019 edition of IT Room Infra. For example, Martijn Kolk from APAC Airconditioning talked about how residual heat, which is often still flared, can be used usefully to make the Netherlands more sustainable. For example, data center Previder PDC1 supplies heating and cooling of the nearby office building. A heat exchange project is underway in Aalsmeer in which the NLDC data center supplies heat to nearby homes, a school and a swimming pool.

Complete heating networks

Kolk also sketched a vision of the future in which data centers, often located in the Amsterdam region, use their residual heat to develop complete heating networks in the built environment. After all, there are common interests in sustainability. It is therefore becoming increasingly common for energy suppliers to approach data center owners to see whether they can realize projects together.

One question that arises during the development of such heating networks is who will be the owner. That can lead to interesting discussions. The question for each project is also whether there should be an open heating network, in which different providers are active, or whether a closed system is preferable.

Making data centers more sustainable also requires more top-down control. For example, Mark Acton from CBRE Data Center Solutions gave a lecture in which he outlined the state of affairs in the field of European standards and ISO certification. It became clear that stricter standards are being worked on with increased urgency and that data centers are focusing on applying best practices. Acton also expressed the expectation that the regulations that force data centers to make savings will become even stricter in the coming years.

Energy storage

Another step in making the sector more sustainable will take place in the field of energy storage. Lukas van der Zijden from ABB outlined a future in which energy storage in a data center becomes an interesting business case. It will no longer be self-evident that diesel generators must keep the systems running during a power outage.

But data centers can also make sustainability improvements by making existing cooling installations more sustainable. Peter Scharis, who works at AQ Group, explained the energy savings that can be achieved by using EC fans. A permanent magnet is used with EC fans. On average, EC motors are 30 percent more efficient than regular AC motors. In addition, EC fans are easier to control and, in addition to a longer lifespan, offer greater cooling capacity. Adiabatic cooling, a natural cooling system based on direct evaporation, is also an interesting business case in certain cases.

Jeroen van der Tang from Nederland ICT / ICT Milieu and Harry Stevens from Hewlett Packard Enterprise also explained during IT Room Infra how data centers currently deal with outdated or discarded servers and the possibilities to give this hardware a second life. Because re-use of data center equipment is indeed possible.

Looking at the entire event, it became clear that sustainability in the data center world is not only a hot topic, but that the theme also has many different aspects. By taking the right steps at the right time, data center managers can play an important role in making the Dutch economy more sustainable towards 2030 and beyond. It is therefore expected that this theme will also play an important role at the IT Room Infra event 2019.