A truly green data center begins its journey way before breaking ground. With the fast pace of innovation in the chip sector, every data center must anticipate hardware upgrades and large increases in energy requirements throughout its lifetime in order to stay competitive and grow sustainably. In this post, we’ll explore the best practices for environmental sustainability throughout a data center’s entire lifecycle: from design, to operation, to end of life.
Sustainable Certifications to Get You Started
Sustainable certifications and standards for data centers are good starting points to cover the basics of proper design and preparation for the best energy efficiency. Examples include building standards such as LEED in the US or BREAM in Europe. For day-to-day operations, ISO certifications for energy efficiency such as 14001 and 50001 are also valuable for ensuring good practice.
It should be noted that these standards and certifications will not ensure a sustainability data center by themselves. However, they will establish proper structures and procedures to measure improvements and ensure a reduction in impact.
The Role of Location for a Green Data Center
The first step is choosing a location. The ideal green data center is not a lone entity that only focuses on itself in isolation; it must be part of a wider ecosystem that includes its local residents, businesses, and governments.
While data centers can be a great source of economic growth and jobs, they must be aware of the micro and macro issues affecting each location. Many are realizing today that they are a huge drain on resources such as power, water, and critical minerals and that this has widespread effects on the data center itself and related stakeholders. This might even mean that certain high-risk locations should be taken off the list, especially if the owner is looking to build a resource-intensive, high-performance facility (we will explore these tradeoffs further in the operation section).
This relationship with the outside world entails the need for a phase of stakeholder engagement that analyzes and quantifies the needs of each group and how these needs will evolve in the future. The sustainable data center will be an effective centerpiece in the community and beyond.
The Community Benefits of Data Center Heat Reuse
Beyond economic growth, surrounding communities and businesses can also benefit from the heat generated from data center operations and the proximity of its computing. Heat reuse is a big win for sustainability on a variety of fronts. By putting that excess heat to good use, we are converting it from waste to be removed to something of value. If implemented properly, it can give a second life to the heat produced from computing.
Single-phase immersion cooling is particularly advantageous in this case as it offers 98% heat transfer capabilities.
Sustainable Data Center Design
Designing a green data center means addressing the environmental and social impact of supply chains. These complex supply chains are often built à la carte for each data center and are not very standardized. Many times, the most sustainable option of the material or product in question does not exist or is too costly. Here it is important to follow the 9Rs of Circular Design1 to reduce your data center’s impact.
Energy efficiencies should be deployed as a priority over renewable sources. This is because clean sources of energy are scarce and intermittent, and data centers have 24/7 energy requirements. Implementing tested and effective technology such as single-phase immersion and free cooling is essential. Once the most efficient tech is deployed as part of a holistic strategy, the focus can shift to the source of energy and data center operations.
Operation
A sustainable data center should look to have as little impact as possible but also be ready for the increasing effects of climate change, such as extreme weather events, higher average temperatures and access to water.
In a recent third-party TCO model completed for a proposed data center in Phoenix, Arizona, Deerns compared the energy consumption of three main cooling technologies in two different scenarios, one with zero Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) and another with the lowest design Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) as possible. The results showed that there is a tradeoff to be had between all forms of cooling. If water is not used, more electricity will need to be consumed for secondary cooling such as chillers. However, Submer’s immersion showed a much lower peak energy consumption.
Another important aspect to consider between these tradeoffs is the consumption of water through indirect sources, i.e. from the consumption of energy. Certain power generation sources2 such as bioenergy, nuclear and thermal consume vast amounts of water. Therefore, if the data center relies on these types of energy sources in its 0 WUE scenario, their water consumption might simply be displaced instead of removed.
Moreover, be aware of which workloads you are running and when3. As renewable energy is more readily available during certain hours of the day, it is important to optimize heavier programs to run when the clean energy source is generating electricity. This kind of initiative aligns with 24/7 carbon free strategies4 that are required for the energy transition.
End of Life
This phase might be the last step in the life cycle, but planning for it begins in the Design phase. The data center should work with suppliers to build products with low impact, long lifespans, and as simple as possible to ensure easy repairability and remanufacturing. For example, having a plan to reuse existing hardware that is no longer fit for purpose for its original use.
The intention is to ensure the value of the material or product is maintained. In the current situation, this value is quickly lost, as the IT sector is an enormous source of e-waste. Although there is no consistent data for data center-generated e-waste, we know that less than 1/4 of global e-waste is recycled5.
Data Center Best Practices for Environmental Sustainability
To sum up, there are best practices to integrate at every stage of your data center lifecycle to reduce your impact on the planet.
- Location: Collaborate with stakeholders to identify opportunities for economic growth and heat reuse.
- Design: Adopt circular design frameworks like the 9Rs of Circular Design to minimize waste. Prioritize energy-efficient technologies over renewable sources.
- Operation: Optimize operations to balance energy and water use effectively. A recent independent study by Deerns highlighted that Submer’s immersion showed a much lower peak energy consumption than existing technology.
- End of Life: Work with suppliers to build simple, repairable, recyclable products. Ensure value is maintained and minimize e-waste.
Overall, the journey to a fully sustainable data center is a long one, but one that brings a wide variety of benefits with it. Get in touch with us today to find out more about how Submer is working towards circularity, and how our cutting-edge solutions can transform your data center into a model of sustainability.
References
- The 9R Framework, ResearchGate ↩︎
- Clean energy can help to ease the water crisis, International Energy Agency ↩︎
- Measuring the Carbon Intensity of AI in Cloud Instances, doiFoundation ↩︎
- 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact, United Nations ↩︎
- The Global E-waste Monitor 2024, International Telecommunication Union ↩︎
