|
Our Solar Powered Data Centre |
 |
 |
The Building:
The data center was built completely using steel except for the door frames. The insulation used was environmentally friendly cellulose (recycled paper) and gives an R-value equal to R 50. This high R-value keeps the cool air in and the hot air out with a usual 20 degree or more difference between inside and outside air temperature, therefore reducing the amount of energy necessary to run the data center.
The Lighting:
The building was designed and built with over 7 solar tubes, which bring in natural light from the outside. This makes it possible to work during daylight hours without any lighting needed. To save energy during low light hours and at night, the data centre uses LED lighting instead of Compact Fluorescent or Fluorescent Light Bulbs. This reduces the electricity usage and eliminates the mercury that comes with fluorescent bulbs. Each LED light set can keep more than 9,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere over its lifetime (about 105,000 hours), compared to a CFL which only keeps around 600 pounds out of the atmosphere over its lifetime (about 7,000 hours); based on data from Energy Star and the EPA. Also, Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs and regular Fluorescent Light Bulbs contain mercury which becomes a concern at landfills and trash incinerators where the mercury from many bulbs can escape and contribute to air and water pollution.
Heating and Cooling:
A custom power saving device was developed for the centre which reduces the amount of power drawn by storing electricity that would otherwise be lost watts caused by inductance (motors). This device supplies stored electricity back to the inductive loads, thus causing a decrease in demand for electricity of up to 30%. The cooling systems that are used were built by a company called Freus, Inc and are Energy Star compliant. They are water-cooled air conditioning systems that, based on test results, are nearly twice as energy efficient as the conventional air-cooled systems that normal data centers have. On top of that there is a custom cooling exchanger built that brings in the cool air from outside when the temperature drops to below 60°F degrees. This exchanger sucks in the cool air from the outside and then blows it back onto the data center which reduces the need for the Freus units to run. Only 3 amps of power are needed for the energy efficient blower to run on cool nights. Find out more about how the energy efficient cooling systems work
Our Servers:
To reduce the need for electricity even further, the data centre uses a solution from Sirius Computer Solutions, NetApp, IBM, and VMWare that allows hundreds of virtual servers to be run on a dozen physical servers. Most data centers experience "server sprawl" because every time they get a new application, they run it on its own server. This means that in an average data center, the servers are running at 4 percent to 8 percent capacity. Virtualization increases the physical servers efficiency and shrinks the data centers' server footprint. The goal is 70 to 75 percent utilization and through this virtualization process it is possible and has resulted in the data centre cutting it's physical server count by over 95 percent. The physical servers used are IBM BladeCenter servers, which consume less then half the power of the average server. Fourteen regular 625 watt servers consume 8,750 watts, where as fourteen comparable blade servers only consume 3,990 watts. This results in a 285 watt saving per server. Using blade servers also results in less heat, and therefore, less power spent on server-room cooling. Read more about our servers.
Disposing of Servers:
After old servers are retired they are taken to a local EWaste Center to be disposed of properly.
Current Projects:
Currently a green roof is being built on the data centre. The green roof will be a layer of dirt 3 to 4 inches thick with drought resistant plants. Once the new green roof is finished, it can reduce our cooling requirements by up to 50% and when finished, it will be the first and only public data center in North America with a green roof.
The data centre is a member of The Green Building Council
|
|
|
|
Environmental Sustainability 
