Leading the way for sustainability

The global data centre industry will achieve strong growth over the next five years. This is due to several drivers, including the growth in demand for cloud technologies and data traffic from private and public end-users.
 
Given the fact data centres are in a unique position to fast-track the adoption of sustainable practices and reduce the damage to our changing climate, it’s inevitable that sustainability will now become embedded in their design right from the start.
 
Recognising this, the news came last month that 42 companies and associations have committed to The Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact; meaning the sector is on its way to making Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
 
With this in mind, what do the next generation of data centres need to consider in meeting these green initiatives?

Carbon-free energy

All facilities must now use 75% renewable or carbon-free energy – Microsoft has started transitioning already. All new data centres in cool climates will achieve an annual PUE target of 1.3 if operating at full capacity, and those in warm climates will only have to meet a PUE of 1.4 (as they use energy to cool their IT servers).
As a result, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, have all purchased land in Sweden, believing the colder environment will help to keep the costs of cooling down.

Water conservation

The Pact is aware that the Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) metric needs work. Targets will be created in the next year or so using either WUE or another water conservation metric, which all new data centres must meet by 2025.

Repairing servers

All operators will need to assess servers for reuse, repair or recycling. Targets are still being created, but a percentage will be agreed by 2025.

Recycling heat

Operators must investigate ways to recycle heat. Perhaps they’ll take inspiration from the team at Facebook’s 50,000 square-meter data centre in Odense, Denmark. They teamed up with a local heating company to redistribute heat generated by the centre’s servers straight to the nearby community’s radiators. Facebook expects to recover 100,000 MWh of energy each year, which is enough to warm 6,900 homes – what a result!

We’re keeping up to date with how the sector is responding to the Pact and we’re keen to see what will emerge this year. Will this be easy? Absolutely not! But it’s a massive leap in the right direction and fantastic news for the sector.