SWEX_Swep Exchange 2022

for the cloud

Easy ways to save energy at home Completely fill your washing machine and dishwasher before turning them on.

In EMEA, the core markets of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Paris and Dublin continued their momentum. But the overall trend is towards expansion beyond these markets with Africa poised to become a significant region, highlighted by the level of supply coming online in South Africa and Kenya. Istanbul and Warsaw are also noted in the report as key “edge” markets to watch. Whether this expansion of data centres across the world is a good or bad thing is a moot point as it will continue to happen. It is therefore crucial to find ways to minimise the massive amounts of energy and water that they use and to benefit from the surplus energy that they create. Energy efficient cooling is critical to building more sustainable data centre operations, given that cooling costs can account for more than half of a data centre’s total annual operating cost. There are a number of ways that such cooling can be deployed. Free cooling involves lowering the air temperature in a data centre by utilising naturally cool water instead of mechanical refrigeration. The ambient outdoor air at many latitudes

and elevations can be considerably cooler during certain seasons and times of the day than the air that is heated by data centre equipment. By filtering and humidifying cooler outdoor air and converting it through a heat exchanger for use inside into the data centre, it is possible to reduce or eliminate the use of mechanical cooling for the majority of operating hours, particularly in drier and cooler climates. As an alternative, cold water sourced from a local river, lake or even the ocean can be processed through a heat exchanger into a data centre and used to achieve the same result. Systems that use this approach are often called water-side economizers, which can either be used to cool the

ambient room air or they can directly cool IT equipment cabinets using rear-door heat exchangers or other systems. Mechanical cooling is only needed when the outdoor air temperature becomes too high for free cooling

SWEP EXCHANGE 17