Controlling data center energy demands is a critical step to achieving ESG targets.
Controlling data center energy demands is a critical step to achieving ESG targets.
WHAT DOES ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE (ESG) HAVE TO DO WITH DATA CENTERS?
The term ESG is becoming a common phrase in boardrooms and C-suites as investors, consumers and other essential stakeholders are taking a strong interest in how companies are moving toward more sustainable operations. Broadly speaking, ESG seeks to incorporate environmental, social and governance factors into company operations. The ESG objective is to generate more sustainable, long-term financial returns while achieving good social responsibility and strong corporate governance.
Each of the ESG factors covers a wide range of company aspects which are summarized below:
Environment: Climate change and carbon emissions, energy use and efficiency, air and water quality, waste management, natural resource conservation.
Social: Customer satisfaction, data protection and privacy, gender and diversity, employee engagement, community relations, human rights, labor standards. Are suppliers held to the same values as the company claims to hold?
Governance: Board composition, audit committee structure, bribery and corruption, executive compensation, lobbying, political contributions, whistleblower programs
DATA CENTERS EVOLVING TO ADDRESS ESG
For data centres, ESG considerations have proven to be particularly vital, primarily due to their high energy usage and related carbon emissions.
Data Centers account for an estimated 1% of worldwide electricity use, so the impact to global energy demand is significant.
The demand for more data will increase exponentially as consumers and businesses use emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, IOT, and 5G networks. As data centres operation become more complex, applying operational best practices will be important as companies try to reduce energy use to achieve ESG targets.
Data centre operations have improved in many ways in the last decade, even as data use has skyrocketed. Information technology advancements such as processor efficiency improvements and virtualization of applications has significantly reduced the number of servers and the energy requirements.
As applications for data continue to grow, the energy required to drive data centres will continue to increase.
WHAT ABOUT THE ELEPHANT IN THE DATA CENTER?
Servers are cooled by air passing through the device, picking up heat from the components and expelling hot air through the back of the server. In a well designed data center, for every kilowatt of electricity used to power servers, a kilowatt of cooling is needed to maintain the device at an acceptable temperature range to prevent overheating. In data centers with issues such as poor equipment layout, limited air flow management or poor operational practices, the cooling requirement will be much higher – equating to much higher energy use.
The challenge in a data center is to deliver an adequate volume of cool air to high density servers to enable continuous operation. Having lots of cooling capacity does not equal good cooling. If poor air flow management, such as air recirculation or obstructions in the delivery path reduces the volume of air flow, no amount of excess cooling will prevent thermal issues. If air flow management is not efficient, cooling costs can account for 50% or more of the total energy costs. This wasted energy use and cost will prevent your company from achieving good ESG results.
Utilizing new cooling technology requires a major capital investment, replacement of existing cooling systems or adding to an already complex environment and major upheaval in the operation of an existing data center. Even the most advanced cooling technology, engineered design, equipment layout and poor air flow management could cripple the opportunity for significant energy improvements.
WHAT CAN BE DONE IN DATA CENTERS TO ACHIEVE ESG OBJECTIVES?
A whole systems approach is needed to determine what improvements should be made to increase operational and energy efficiency to achieve improved cooling effectiveness.
SCTi’s Cooling Optimization Program begins by performing a detailed Audit to identify what is good, what needs to change and how to change it to maximize cooling efficiency. Gaining more cooling capacity with the existing equipment is cost effective and environmentally friendly, helping your company to reach its ESG objectives.
SCTi has been a leader in improving data center energy efficiency over the past 12 years. Aligning with industry best practices and adhering to the mantra of doing more with what you have, has enabled SCTi to substantially reduce data center cooling costs, reduce carbon footprint and defer capital spending on new cooling systems, all of which align with ESG objectives.