Data Centers Must Turn to Sustainability

In Europe, we work with 100 percent clean energy, seven years before the obligation of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact self-regulatory framework, Lex Coors, Chief Data Center Technology and Engineering Officer at Digital Realty, points out for ICTbusiness.biz and adds that their global coverage of renewable energy is approx. 64 percent and increases from year to year depending on the availability of clean energy in the markets where they operate.

According to him, currently 34 of our data centers, more than 10 percent of the total, are Energy Star certified, and we are actually the only data center company to be named an Energy Star Partner of the Year (EPA) by the US Environmental Protection Agency for our energy efficiency efforts.

You have been a manager at Interxion for many years and are now continuing your career at Digital Realty. What changes have you observed during that period, when we talk about the data center approach to sustainability?

At Digital Realty, sustainability is at the forefront of our operations and future expansions. Using clean energy to deliver on our promise efficiently and in a sustainable way serving the business needs of our customers, is something we take extremely seriously.

In recent years, we have taken things to a whole new level, carefully considering sustainability measures when developing new data centers and making changes with sustainability in mind at existing locations where these changes are possible and make business sense.

These efforts have resulted in very measurable results. In Europe, we are operating at 100% clean energy, seven years ahead of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact self-regulatory framework commitment. Our global renewable energy coverage is approximately 64% and increasing year-on-year depending on availability of clean energy in the markets in which we operate.

Currently, 34 of our data centers (more than 10% of the total number) are Energy Star certified and, in fact, we’re the only data center company to be named the Energy Star Partner of the Year by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for our energy efficiency efforts.

In 2021, we surpassed one gigawatt of IT capacity certified in accordance with sustainable building standards (almost 1.2 million m²), the first data center provider to achieve this milestone.

What is the approach to sustainability in the US in relation to the EU, that is, in relation to Africa? Does DLR have a uniform approach throughout the company or does it adapt to the requirements of a particular market?

Sustainability isn’t just something we talk about. It factors into everything we do, from research and development to execution, and this is consistent across every market in which we operate. Of course, we adapt to the local conditions making sure that we adhere to local regulations, however, in cases where the standards set by our company supersede those that exist in the local market, we tend to stick to our standards, in some cases going above and beyond where feasible.

Digital Realty also supports local green efforts which differ from market to market. In 2021 in France, for example, we supported the “Prométhée-Med“ carbon offset project, which focuses on increasing the surface of Mediterranean seabed covered with plant Posidonia seagrass (Posidonia Oceanica), which plays a key role in maintaining the biological and physical balance of the Mediterranean Sea. Posidonia Oceanica stores up to 1.500 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per hectare - 3 to 5 times more than tropical forests. Where local initiatives are successful, we try to roll them out across the other markets in which we operate. For example, last year in France we trialled the use of HVO100 - a renewable biodiesel - in our backup generators. Following its resounding success, we’re now trialling it in Spain, and we’re planning a wider rollout across our entire portfolio in those countries where HVO 100 is available.

Are DLR users interested in sustainability and are they willing to accept any compromises in the service to increase sustainability?

Our focus on sustainability doesn’t compromise the level of service we offer our customers, and our customers are fully aware of this. As an industry-leader, we have a responsibility to focus our efforts on supporting the evolving needs of our global customer base, helping them deliver growth, while driving sustainable innovation to decarbonize our industry.

How the increase in data center energy efficiency and data center operating costs correlate? Is the data center motivated to increase efficiency because it reduces costs?

By its definition, making the energy use more efficient decreases operating costs (providing, of course, that the price of energy remains the same).

Our global sustainability and energy procurement teams help to set annual energy reduction targets and work together to improve the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of our facilities globally. We exceeded our goal to reduce the PUE of our U.S. colocation portfolio by 10% in 2022 (against a 2017 baseline) by achieving a 16% reduction in 2021. We also surpassed our goal to further improve the PUE of our European operation by 10% for our portfolio by 2021 (against 2020 baseline).

Our Operations team has performed energy audits on more than a third of our global managed portfolio by square meters in the past three years targeting properties that would deliver significant efficiency and cost savings. Projects implemented in 2021 resulted in an estimated 50.150 MWh and 3,2 USD million in energy efficiency savings, equivalent to the electricity needs of 4.200 homes for one year.

What are the possibilities of buying energy from alternative sources for the data center, considering the need for power supply stability?

We already buy renewable energy whenever possible, and in some locations, we also cover a part of our energy needs with on-site solar installations. Recently, we entered into a ten-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Engie for a 116 MW share of a new 154 MW solar park. Moves like this help us to maintain 100% renewable energy coverage across our European portfolio, as well as our U.S. colocation portfolio.

As I already mentioned above, there are no compromises in our service availability and reliability to continue our road to zero emissions.

Are there any future technologies that are on the horizon, but not yet in use, that you think will make data centers greener?

We believe that, over time, green hydrogen as large scale/ long term energy storage will find its way into the data center industry. For now, the European Commission is focussing on decarbonizing the existing power grid with the available hydrogen, which, in most cases is not yet green hydrogen. We believe this will take an estimated additional 8 - 10 years before green hydrogen becomes financially feasible and largely available.

One of the other technologies which is most promising in the short term is liquid cooling. We recently announced that we had equipped in Paris - one of many of our liquid ready data centers - with a direct liquid cooling (DLC) system to support the high-performance computing equipment - such as AI - increasingly being adopted by our customers globally. With DLC, customers are likely to experience reductions in data processing costs - compared to traditional air-cooling methods - due to the technology’s ability to efficiently dissipate heat and reduce energy consumption, as well as make progress towards the reduction of our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions.

Where possible, we try to harness the earth’s natural resources to cool our facilities. Since 2006, our designs for new data centers in EMEA have incorporated free cooling capabilities. We also look at ‘out of the box’ solutions such as aquifer cooling in the Netherlands and some parts of the Nordics. In 2012 we deployed an award-winning, innovative Cooling solution in Marseille, which took two and a half years to build and includes more than three kilometers of buried networks and 27 heat exchangers. It works by diverting underground water from a former industrial facility dating back to the late 19^th century, ‘La Galerie de la Mer’. The structure collects and channels rainwater that seeps in from the old mines of Gardanne to the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille. Kept at 15°C year-round, the water is channeled via a buried network and pumping station near to the Interxion data centers, which is then used to cool them by thermal exchange. The €15 million cooling solution, which is up to 30 times more energy efficient than traditional cooling systems, will result in savings of up to 18,400 megawatt hour (MWh) annually, while simultaneously mitigating the emission of 795 tons of CO², the equivalent of 5,560 trees planted each year.

Aside from liquid cooling, we also leverage thermal optimization software and performance analytics to support our enterprise customers in identifying potential airflow and cooling inefficiencies. It’s reduced our cooling system energy consumption at one of our key London sites by 20% during the first year. We have made the solution available to our wider customer base to contribute towards our global targets and it’s a great example of how we can harness technology to make a positive difference.

We have seen the example of Vienna, where DLR supplies excess heat to a hospital, for heating purposes. Do you intend to move in that direction in other markets as well?

Our Vienna data center campus will provide waste heat to the neighboring Floridsdorf Hospital. Heated water will be used to heat the building and fulfill 50-70% of the hospital’s hot water needs. The project is expected to come online in 2023 and save 4.000 tons of CO₂ emissions per year once fully operational. In addition to Vienna, we already have several of such deployments in use or in development across EMEA and in North America.

Since 2015, cooling and heat recovery for our STO6 data center has been provided by Stockholm Exergi’s heat recovery plant in Akalla and is delivered via a district cooling network. The excess heat from the data center is recovered and returned to Stockholm Exergi where it enters large heat pumps that produce district heating to heat thousands of homes.

In Amsterdam, our AMS5 data center provides excess heat to business parks in Schiphol-Rijk area.

Heat generated by our MRS2 and MRS3 data centers will be fed into the urban heating network in the Euroméditerranée neighborhoods of Marseille, supporting a portion of the heating needs of up to 500.000 m2 of residential and commercial buildings, as early as 2025.

Our ZUR1 data center lease in Zürich captures waste heat from servers and provides hot water to a heat pump which is connected to the building’s central heating system. The data center provides hot water to heat the building’s adjacent offices and common areas. Additionally, our new ZUR3 facility is expected to be part of a new district heating project in the municipalities of Opfikon and Rümlang. The data center’s waste heat will be used to warm homes in the EnergieVerbund Airport City region.

Our Westin Building Exchange data center in Seattle supplies heat for the adjacent Amazon corporate campus via a local “Ecodistrict.“ The cooled water from Amazon’s buildings is then returned to the Westin Building's cooling infrastructure to be re-used.

We will consider similar projects in our other data centers where they are feasible.

This article has been translated from Croatian