Colt Data Centre Services has revealed that each of its European data centres now uses renewable energy, wherever this option is available.
In practice, this means that 9 of the company’s 17 European facilities now run exclusively on power generated from renewable sources. In France, the country’s reliance on nuclear power and an energy generation shortfall makes it impossible for any data centre provider to guarantee 100 per cent renewable power, although it is hoped that planned developments for renewable energy will meet the shortfall by 2023.
The announcement follows a major campaign by Colt DCS to reduce the environmental impact of its worldwide network of data centres. Colt DCS have kicked off a strong drive internally to reduce CO2 emissions, optimising power usage effectiveness (PUE), and adopting new cooling technologies across its facilities to optimise the performance of their data centres.
The global data centre market is responsible for the consumption of between three and five per cent of the world’s power, with cooling accounting for around 40 per cent of total energy consumption. As well as switching to renewable energy wherever possible, Colt DCS is continuing to invest millions in data centre design, management and equipment selection in its facilities across the globe. These green initiatives include:
- Using adiabatic cooling to improve PUE and third party software system to select the most efficient cooling solution country by country
- Distributed redundant UPS designs minimising trapped capacity and maximising efficiency in comparison to traditional plants
- Using variable speed fans and drives for AHU’S, CRACS, and pumps
- Employing the latest data centre management techniques including software-defined networking, EMS, BMS, DCIM, CFD and predictive analytics to squeeze even more efficiency from its equipment
Colt DCS’ hyper-scale core London north data centre, provides a perfect illustration of these measures in practice. The facility has demonstrated a PUE of 1.19 thanks to the company’s investment in, and application of these tools and technologies.
“The global technology industry needs to face up to its global responsibilities, not least in the area of energy usage,” said Detlef Spang, CEO. “So far, most ‘green’ regulations are voluntary – such as the European Commission’s voluntary code of conduct for energy efficiency in data centres.
“Colt DCS believes that our industry has a moral and ethical duty to go far beyond the minimum requirements for sustainability, and to deploy techniques and new infrastructure technology that will have a major and measurable effect on the resources we use. This will require major investment, but by adopting the latest technologies and best practices, we will deliver lower lifetime costs for our customers while also ensuring we leave the smallest possible ecological footprint in the territories where we operate around the world. Colt DCS’ internal design team have embarked on a project to look at all forms of green energy to see how they will best into DCS data centre designs going forward to ensure we are minimise the impact of Colt DCS data centres to the environment”
