Data center providers aren’t looking towards the networking challenges or making the data center complete solutions for on-premise storage requirement over the last few years we have seen a steady shift from the leaders to an efficient energy practice and use various renewable energy. According to the census on the data centers in 2014, US consumed close to 70 billion kWh representing about 1.8 percent of the energy consumption of the US, and it is all set to reach 73 billion kWh in 2020. The recent GDPR rules have added that maintaining the Europe consumer data in Europe will now be applicable for all the enterprises, or the hefty fine would be levied. So it’s crucial that as the data centers are being brought to life, improved energy practices and using renewable energy is forming the basis of customer’s requirements.

The energy efficiency is a company-wide policy that needs to implement with energy saving measures built right in the data centers. Over the last 20 years, Interxion has pioneered in the energy having designed and harnessed everything for artic winds to underground aquifers in the Baltic Sea to reduce the energy use and carbon footprint. Energy efficiency isn’t just one step or singly followed process; a constant investment and innovation will soon build a complete infrastructure for saving energy. Between 2017 to 2019, Interxion chose to redeem all of its data centers electricity usage in the form of renewable energy produced in Europe.

 

Today energy demand is driving the increasing cost of data centers, to maintain and make the technology of outsourcing data centers more efficient and reliable we need to find alternative sources of energy to meet the growing demands. Here are certain energy innovations to move the data center to a new space.

1. Cooling Technology

For data center providers, much of the data operation requires to keep the data center temperature under control. To ensure the equipment is kept cool to keep the customer’s mission-critical applications running for 24/7 for all the 365 days. Innovating and implementing the advanced energy efficient cooling technologies that assist the required operational technology for cooling a data center and reduce the use of conventional electricity.

2. Reuse of Excess heat

When it comes to energy efficiency, we can utilize different forms of energy to have the desired results in the energy domain. One of the notable example that we had observed such a use of technology was in the 1970s when Stockholm took energy efficiency completely to a new level by building new infrastructure to reuse the excess heat. Interxion was one of the key partners while proving the key ground was breaking technology with the Stockholm Exergi.

3. Groundwater Cooling

In Denmark, Interxion has developed a groundwater cooling system that is more energy efficient than others. In the past traditional cooling method was used to keep the groundwater to a certain level, which was power inefficient. Interxion worked with the city officials of Ballerup to develop a groundwater-based cooling system that can replace the traditional refrigerators with geo-energy.

4. Nordics: Hydro and Windpower

In Demark, the complete Nordic region has evolved as Europe’s most energy efficient region. The Nordic data center facilities have been designed keeping in mind the byproducts like excess heat in mind, and they also form the only data center that is run on completely on sustainable energy regions in the whole Europe. The great supply of power comes from hydro, and wind power combined the cold climatic region of Nordics that make it an ideal center for power consumption.  There has been a rapid increase in the number of data centers that are being built in the northern region of Europe. There has been an increased number of hyperscale data center projects emerging in both Denmark and Sweden.  

5. Free air cooling in Ireland

Ireland is one of the regions that has come under the rapid development of energy efficiency. The Emeralds isles temperate climate is all set to make perfect sense for the free air cooling in the region. The region provides approximately 40 percent less electricity in the typical cooling method. Ireland in considered as one of the top regions in the world for energy efficiency with almost 26 percent of the energy coming from sustainable sources. Interxion Ireland data centers are making a major contribution to energy efficiency, pioneering new approaches towards data centers. Interxion even designed its first data center DUB3 with a specific focus on energy saving modular architecture, incorporating cooling and maximum efficiency components.

6. Why is energy efficiency so important?

Taking the initiative towards implementing green practices can be one of the most notable business differentiators for the service providers when they are looking to dominate the European market. European regions give energy sustainability one of the prime reasons for adopting any of the products. US data center providers are trying to gain an edge by providing co-location based data centers committed to both green technology and innovating new efficiency measure to distinguish themselves from competitors.

Conclusion

The efficiency and sustainable facilities have changed with the way we view the data centers; data centers were initially considered to power inefficient and cause of major pollution in the region. However, over time, we saw an improved understanding of technology to make an efficient way to keep the data centers operationally effective and cost-efficient.

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