What are dual-use data centers and how they promote energy efficiency

This article is part of a special issue of VB. Read the full series here: Smart Sustainability.

In 1984, global Internet traffic was about 15 GB per month. In 2014, the average internet traffic per user was 15 gigabytes per month. Today, the number is even higher, thanks to the rise of mobile devices and digital services that have brought nearly 5 billion people online.

As the world's population goes online, Internet Protocol (IP) traffic will skyrocket, increasing the use of data centers (which handle most of the world's traffic and big data), as well as only the electricity needed to operate. them (produced mainly in coal-fired power plants).

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data centers already consume around 200-250 TWh of electricity, contributing 0.3% of global CO2 emissions each year. This is more than the national energy consumption of some countries and around 1% of the world's electricity demand. By 2025, with increasing IP traffic and big data, these data factories are expected to consume a fifth of the world's power supply, further compounding the problem.

"Most of the energy demand comes from powering the servers that process the data, but these, in turn, generate heat and need to be cooled," said Michael Strouboulis, Business Development Manager for digital infrastructure at Danfoss, to VentureBeat. "This cooling also requires a lot of energy and generates significant excess heat, most of which is currently being released into the environment",

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This heat, currently being dissipated into the atmosphere, is the hidden golden opportunity to boost energy efficiency and decarbonize data centers.

Currently, most organizations are trying to offset the increased data and power load by moving from old data centers to hyperscale ones, streamlining IT processes, using low GWP (global warming potential) refrigerants and adopting energy efficient measures. such as varying the speed of motors driving fans, water pumps or refrigeration compressors.

Google, for its part, claims that its measures reduced the average power utilization efficiency (PUE) - the total power of the data center divided by the energy used for computing alone - for all its data centers at 1.12, which is very close to the ideal rating of 1.0.

"If a data center has a PUE of 1.0, that means the IT equipment (ITE) is using 100% of the energy and none of it is wasted as heat... But if the PUE is 1.8, then for every 1.8 watts entering the building, 1 watt powers the ITE and 0.8 is consumed elsewhere in terms of non-ITE energy which is primarily discharged under form heat out of the building,” Strouboulis explained.

Thanks to the heat that is otherwise considered a "waste", organizations can meet electricity needs elsewhere, possibly in a nearby location.

In addition to the measures mentioned above, companies can capture the cha...