October 9, 2009—The Green Grid consortium has announced the availability of a new free online tool and maps designed to help data center and facilities managers easily determine how much outside air—also known as free cooling—is available for individual data centers. The updates extend coverage of the tool and maps to 33 European countries, and can now help data center managers in Europe lower energy consumption and related costs, potentially extending the life and improving the energy efficiency of data center facilities.
Using country and city names, the tool allows data center managers in Europe to input their specific variables—such as local energy costs, IT load, and facility load—to determine the specific potential energy savings for individual facilities. In addition to free cooling from outside air, the tool provides information about savings that could be obtained using water-side economizers.
The tool is available for the following European countries: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom.
Members of The Green Grid will have access to a high resolution graphical map of the estimated hours of air-side and water-side economization possible for Europe and many specific countries. Lower resolution maps of European free cooling estimates are available to the public at The Green Grid Web site.
