EDITOR’S QUESTION
HOW CAN THE DATA CENTRE
SECTOR DEVELOP A GREENER
APPROACH TO OPERATIONS?
Ashraf Yehia, Managing Director – Middle East, Eaton, asks
how the data centre industry can be made more sustainable.
he current crisis
T
situation has highlighted
the critical role being
played by telecom
networks and the
data centre industry
in keeping critical communication,
information, social media and
entertainment applications running.
So, despite the challenges, the global
data centre market is likely to see very
significant growth throughout 2020
and beyond.
It is estimated that the Middle East data
centre market is likely to grow at a CAGR
of around 7% during the period 2018–
2024. Growth is forecast for big market
players globally but funding will also
continue to flow towards many smaller
data centre companies and new entrants
looking to break ground on the next
generation of data centres. However, this
raises important questions: What is the
environmental impact of this growth and
what are the pros and cons?
So, what can data centres do, from the
small local data centre to the largest
hyperscale cloud data centre?
By shifting attention away from traditional
thinking about ‘greening’ my data centre
to more transformative thinking like
‘greening the entire grid’, we can make
the data centre industry in the region and
beyond more sustainable long-term.
This may sound naïve but it’s actually
more achievable than most data centre
designers and operators think.
The production cost of grid scale
renewable energy has fallen dramatically
and is now lower per unit than most
carbon or nuclear. As national grids
migrate to renewables, the variable
nature of that energy source presents grid
system challenges.
Grid instability is bad news not only for the
grid companies and their clients but also
of direct concern to data centre operators.
To address this potential instability,
secondary auxiliary sources and
infrastructure can be used. This is a
potential cost barrier.
The answer
There are vast electrical energy reserves
and infrastructure tied into data centre
operations. Through the use of an
EnergyAware UPS, these backup systems
can be used to provide the grid with
these auxiliary services. National energy
markets are opening to allow the provision
and trade of these services (frequency
containment, fast frequency response,
demand response). These services can be
provided by data centres with zero impact
on the primary and critical IT loads.
If the data centre industry provides
these services, it removes the limits
on the percentage of renewables a grid
can adopt. This shows how a data centre
can accelerate the adoption of
renewables, ‘green the grid’ at national
level and mitigate risk in its own primary
electrical supply.
Data centres could potentially be
remunerated for these grid services by the
grid companies in the region.
So, it’s a double win: in addition to
‘greening the grid’, data centre operators
can tap into a new revenue stream to
offset existing infrastructure costs.
An EnergyAware UPS has the underlying
technology that allows the UPS, and its
connected backup power, to function as
a reserve to the grid. It has the imbedded
technology to allow a policy defined,
two-way flow of energy between the data
centre and the grid.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com Issue 15
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