Hyper-scale data center operators like Google, Amazon Web Services, and Apple have been very public about their renewable energy usage and commitments. It’s good for the environment and it makes people look upon them favorably. However, these operators contribute only a small fraction (think around 5 percent) of overall data center energy usage. The multitenant market is driving data center growth, but what is their role in terms of renewable energy?
Tag Archives: Green Data Center
The Practicality of Floating Data Centers
Could floating data centers help keep data center infrastructures cool using the water available from the seas below? It’s a whacky thought that’s starting to get some serious consideration from some of the world’s top data center designers. It’s no secret that the Earth is covered by 75% water and water is commonly used to cool equipment in data centers. Given these facts, it became clear that bringing the data center closer to the water could have some serious advantages for data center designers looking to conserve energy. Do the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of using a floating data center?
Packet Power: Turn Basic PDUs into “Smart PDUs” …in Minutes
Upgrading your standard un-metered PDU to a fully metered PDU doesn’t have to mean going to the expense of purchasing a new smart PDU along with the costs of adding network cable drops and a massive integration effort with a monitoring program. Packet Power “Smart Cables” simplify the process with the entire solution often costing less than most metered PDUs and can be implemented quickly and easily.
Geodesic Dome Makes Perfect Data Center Shell in Oregon
Used to build everything from a planetarium in post-WWI Germany to mobile yoga studios at outdoor festivals today, the geodesic dome has proven to be a lasting concept for highly stable structures of any size. Structural stability is a valued goal in data center design, but the idea of building a data center shell using a spherical skeleton that consist of great circles intersecting to form a series of triangles – the most stable shape we know of – is novel.
Press Release: Crestron Demonstrates Lighting Control Solutions that Meet the Changing Building and Energy Code Requirements
New commercial lighting solutions and space-based design provide tools to easily build energy efficient buildings.
“We’re changing the lighting control design concept. For far too long the strategy has been to design a system for the entire building and then look at the needs of the individual rooms within the building; our new philosophy is to design a solution for each space first, then connect every space in the building together through a centralized, integrated lighting control solution,” said Brian Daley, Crestron VP of Sales, Commercial Lighting. Crestron is the only controls manufacturer that has the unique capability to do this. And every product we produce works together seamlessly.”
There Are Now 3 Million Data Centers in the U.S., and Climbing
Data centers, the key backbone of the cloud, are growing larger and more energy intensive, prompting the Department of Energy (DOE) to launch a new initiative on Tuesday aimed at improving their energy efficiency.
According to DOE statistics, data center electricity use doubled between 2001 to 2006, from 30 to 60 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and stood at about 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity as of 2013. This amounts to about 2% of all U.S. electricity use and climbing.
Water-cooled Solutions for High Density Rack Cooling
Server densities are steadily increasing for HPC applications in legacy, government and institutional data centers. As densities increase, traditional cooling systems are struggling to keep up. Water cooling is a concern for many data center operators. However, the heat transfer rate of water is about 3-4 thousand times that of air so the efficiency of water cooling is compelling.
Why Your High-Efficiency Data Center Needs Good PDUs
Cloud computing, new applications and a lot more user connectivity are all driving forces around the data center evolution. In fact, the data center has become the home of all modern technologies. Businesses are now building their entire organizational model around the capabilities of IT. Through it all, pressure continues to mount on data center operators to run high-efficiency environments capable of good power control.
What’s happening in data center energy management
New equipment, tools and business strategies will rein in run-away IT energy costs, the biggest operating expense in the data center. Data center energy management requires a multi-pronged approach: power-sipping hardware, tools that generate a clear depiction of energy use and expose areas where changes will pay off, and business strategies that bring in the right energy control products with the best return on investment (ROI).
Does energy efficiency drive data center decisions? By Wendy Schuchart
When we took aim at the big green data center purveyors like Google, Apple and Facebook, we had no idea that we’d struck an energy efficiency nerve with data center professionals around the globe. It turns out that yes, everyone’s aware that PUE is a big of a weasel calculation when it comes to energy efficiency. What’s more, data center admins know that greenwashing is prevalent.
PTS Data Center Solutions, Inc. 