Green Data Centre

The hottest topic in data centre design these days is the legendary cold wind blowing off England's North Sea. This glacier-cooled coastal air, often bone-chillingly icy, is being innovatively harnessed into a new technology tool: lowering temperatures of IT equipment and plant rooms for an anticipated annual energy saving of 40 percent compared to conventional data centres.

Currently under construction by EDS, an HP company, the Wynyard facility in North East England near Billingham incorporates a number of design considerations that are expected to make it one of the largest and most environmentally friendly data centres in Europe once fully constructed. It has already drawn the attention of data centre design professionals, receiving the Green Datacentre Award in December 2008, given by DatacenterDynamics Ltd. to recognize innovation and reward excellence in facility design and operations for use of innovative technology.

“We hope that making the industry aware of what we have achieved at Wynyard will set a new standard for data centres around the world,” said Sally Poynter, EDS Data Centre Services Lead. “When Wynyard is completed it will be one of the largest data centres in Europe, but will achieve costs and energy savings on a different level from other data centres.”

Data centres can be the single largest source of electrical power consumption and carbon emissions for large corporations. Traditional data centres on average use several thousand megawatt hours per year. If data centres were classed as a separate industry, they would be the sixth-largest user of electricity.

By 2011, the average UK data centre is expected to spend around £11m ($15.33m) a year on cooling IT systems, equipment and plant rooms. With the rising cost of energy and mounting concern over the IT industry's contribution to carbon emissions, EDS' design for Wynyard sets a new standard for data centres around the world.

Wynyard is able to reduce the cost of cooling in its facility through a number of design considerations:

• Eight 2.2m diameter fans in each of the four halls in the data centre used to supply air and another eight used to exhaust air
• A mixing chamber in the facility recirculates air to maintain conditions in the 5m-high pressurised plenum below the computer equipment
• 8100m2 of technical space at an average capacity of 2260 w/m2 to a tier 3 standard
• Humidification and cooling coils in the data centre to tune the outside air condition and remove contaminants

At an average of 9 pence (11.7¢) per kWH, this design will save Wynyard approximately £1m ($1.4m) per hall, which will deliver EDS and its clients energy efficient computing space with a carbon footprint of less than half of many of its competitors in the market.

Anne Augustine, EDS Head of Sustainability in EMEA, said that this data centre was just one of the many ways that the business unit reduces its carbon footprint.

“EDS and HP are both committed to environmental sustainability, with HP recently announcing that it will reduce the combined energy consumption of operations and products by 25 percent below 2005 levels, by 2010,” Augustine said. “Both organizations have solutions and products to mobilize their clients to take action on their environmental impact; be that from the data centre to the desktop and into the wider business operations our clients run.”

Construction is already underway, with completion of the facility due at the end of 2009. EDS will be targeting public and private sector companies to house their infrastructure in Wynyard and are expecting a positive response to this effort.

“There's an old saying that it's an ill wind that blows no good,” said Augustine. “At EDS, we're turning the ill winds into a world of good for our clients and for the earth.”