Mission Critical Power: How To Cut A Data Centre’s Carbon Footprint

With data centre managers facing growing pressure to cut their carbon footprint, we share a few of our best energy-saving tips.

Data centres generate 1/50th of the world’s total harmful greenhouse gasses. That’s the same amount as the notoriously environmentally-unfriendly airline sector.

It’s little wonder then, that the industry is keen to embrace measures that help to improve IT efficiency. In the case of tech behemoth Microsoft, that involves a little ‘outside of the box’ thinking.

Through its ‘Project Natick’, the firm has sunk a containerised data centre to the depths of the North Sea off the coast of the Orkney Islands. The naturally cool temperatures should keep the server room’s temperatures manageable.

But what if you aren’t conveniently located near to an ocean? Riello UPS General Manager Leo Craig speaks to Mission Critical Power magazine and shares practical tips to cut a data centre’s carbon footprint.

Cutting Carbon Footprint With Efficient Modular UPS Systems

One of the main areas where data centre efficiency savings can be made is the move to modular UPS power supplies. Such UPS, like the Multi Power, waste far less energy and require significantly less air conditioning than traditional static UPS systems.

They can achieve operational efficiency up to 96%. While the modular principle also reduces the risk of wasteful oversizing during initial installation. When the data centre’s load increases, managers can just easily add in more power modules as required.

What other steps can IT administrators take to minimise their environmental impact?

Leo recommends virtualising servers and storage, which spreads out energy-intensive tasks and saves space. Where possible, data centres should also think about introducing a containment system that enhances server room air conditioning efficiency.

In essence, this requires hot and cold aisles to be configured to help CRAC systems run at optimum efficiency.

Read the full article on p44-45 in October’s Mission Critical Power now