Importance of energy efficiency in co-location data centres

Over the last couple of years, average smartphone data consumption in India has jumped from 4GB per month to approx. 30 GB per month (1 GB per day). However, this is only one segment of data usage.

CISCO VNI predicts that by 2022, the internet traffic would grow four-folds, at a CAGR of 30%. With upcoming legislation for data localisation and impetus on smart connected cities, data centre operations in India are looking at a greener pasture in the future.

One thing that defines the success of data-oriented infrastructure is the uninterrupted continuity and demand for energy. Globally, data centres energy demands account for 1% of global electricity demand. Despite the growth in this energy demand, decisive steps taken for energy efficiency is helping to limit energy consumption.

Energy efficiency will play an essential role in making a sustainable data centre infrastructure possible in the future. Some of the considerations in this direction are as follows:

Planning for Scarce Resources

Modern data centres not only focus on technological development but also work on efficient use of scarce resources like water and power. Given the limited supplies of water and environmental impact of power generation, data centre services must do their part to become more energy-efficient, such as consistently focusing on developing infrastructure and promoting energy utilization through long-term sourcing contracts with renewable energy producers. Along with external sources for green energy, they can also develop in-house capacity for power generation.

At STT GDC India’s data centre facilities, we generate 34% of the power we consume from renewable sources. We have also built the in-house solar energy capacity to sustain energy demands for DC operations, including the largest onsite solar power farm in India.

Optimized Cooling & Other Resources

Cooling is the largest non-IT power consumption in a Data Centre. Cooling data centres is not only a power-intensive but also a water-intensive activity. Particularly for the Indian region, water supply is highly cyclical and dependent on monsoons to a good extent. While monsoons have excess water availability, other seasons are usually water stressed.

Keeping that in mind, the local data centres have taken additional measures to manage the cooling process using hot and cold aisle containment.

Similarly, they practice rainwater harvesting and recycling of chiller water to reduce wastage to reduce water consumption in DC’s cooling processes.

Apart from harvesting and recycling, investing in technologies for air to water generation and hybrid cooling also helps in reducing the fresh-water usage in cooling. Hybrid and peripheral techniques for cooling, such as adiabatic cooling techniques, which are put into use to reduce the water and power consumption at chiller plants.

Innovation in Cooling Technologies

Many new and innovative technologies have come up to make the data centre cooling process more energy efficient. Some of the notable technologies are:

• Liquid-Emersion Cooling: In this process, the servers are fully emerged into a liquid coolant that flows through the hot components to cool them up.
• Evaporative Cooling: This works best in low humidity environments and uses only two power-consuming components to manage temperature – fan and water pump.
• Smart Assistant (AI Based Cooling Management System): This process monitors CPU and GPU temperatures in real-time to estimate how much cooling is required.

The new cooling methods are expected to reduce energy requirements for data centre cooling from 25% to 40% as compared to traditional methods. More efficient cooling systems can support higher density racks and modern data centre infrastructure without overburdening the power sources.

Data Centres Heading for a Sustainable Future

Indeed, data centres are an integral part of the foundations of the modern, hi-tech world. With the increasing Internet dependence in day-to-day lives and changing consumer perspectives, data centres are growing their capacities accordingly in a sustainable manner as detailed above. It will ensure that the advancements in technology and excess use of Internet does not cause a severe impact on the environment.