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After writing a blog on Earth Day about my optimism for the technology industry’s ability to overcome the challenges associated with energy-hungry data centers, a CIOZone member forwarded me an article on an innovative project in Finland.
A mobile telecommunications company called Elisa is building a new data center in Espoo, Finland, which when completed will actually reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 7,500 tons per year. That’s right, we’re not talking about contributing greenhouse gases – we’re talking about eliminating them.
This rather impressive feat is achieved by capturing the heat generated by servers and storage systems in the data center and redeploying that energy as a source of heat for nearby buildings and offices.
“We are determined to reduce our energy consumption within our production infrastructure, thus doing our share to combat climate change,” Kimmo Pentikainen, director of environmental affairs at Elisa, said in a statement announcing the project.
You might wonder how the data center can actually achieve a negative carbon footprint - after all, it has to consume energy even if it is contributing energy in the form of heat. The equation begins by first purchasing energy from renewable power sources, such as wind, from the power supplier (in this case Nordic energy supplier Fortum). So, in a sense the data center does not create greenhouse gases to begin with.
On the positive side of the equation, heat from the data center’s servers is captured and gets injected into water or steam. The heated water is then circulated to nearby office buildings, homes or businesses and can be consumed as hot water or used in heating systems. Through a heat exchange process, the captured heat can also be used to drive air conditioning systems.
District heating networks, like the one that will be employed by Elisa, are not common in North America but are fairly well established in Europe. IBM worked with Syracuse University to open a data center earlier this year that utilizes the district heating concept and plans to use it as a showcase to establish heating grids in places like Manhattan.
Elisa says typically a data center of this size would contribute 2,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year. Instead, it will be saving about 7,500 tons.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, this is an example of some of the great strides that have been made recently and why I’m optimistic the IT industry will be able to put a greener face on data centers.
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