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Carbon Trust design service expects to halve data center emissions

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July 16, 2010—The rise in carbon emissions threatened by the projected exponential growth of data centers could be halved in the U.K. thanks to a new design service recently launched by the Carbon Trust. The service provides specialist advice enabling data center developers to maximize the flow of natural air to keep components cool, use local renewable energy sources where viable, and reuse the heat generated.

The Strategic Design Advice for Data Centers, program was developed from the Carbon Trust's successful Buildings Design Advice service. The service is available to all data center owners, designers and operators who are planning a new facility or looking to refurbish or carry out significant alterations to their data center.

The new service has already been piloted in the design of multi-billion pound data storage and processing facility, The Lockerbie Data Centre, Scotland, where it is expected to help reduce operating costs by around 50 percent compared with modern data centers of a similar size. The facility's low-carbon design is also expected to emit over 200,000 tonnes of CO₂ less, per year, than a conventional data center of the same size, allowing the facility to cut in half its required purchase of carbon allowance units under the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC).

The Lockerbie facility is designed to use natural cooling from its Scottish location to help save energy, and to harvest waste heat for reuse in an adjacent eco business park, and new horticultural businesses on site. Much of the energy demand is likely to be provided by a nearby biomass-fueled power station and wind farms, so the data center will rely on traditional forms of power only when the renewable electricity generation levels are reduced.

   
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