Apple $ 1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina, will have a 20 MW solar installation, located on 100 acres which will supply 42 million kWh of renewable energy each year. Apple is also building a 5 MW fuel cell installation adjacent to the data center, which will be powered by 100% biogas and provide more than 40 million kWh of baseload renewable energy annually.

The facility has already earned the LEED Platinum certification. The data centre’s chilled water storage system is designed to improve chiller efficiency by transferring 10,400 kWh of electricity consumption from peak to off-peak hours every day. Outside air is funneled into the building at night and during cool-weather hours. Use of outside air and the water storage system allows the chillers to be turned off more than 75% of the time.

The data centre also boosts white cool-roof to reflect sun, high-efficiency LED lighting equipped with motion sensors, and power distributed at higher voltages to increase efficiency by reducing power loss.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/apple-reveals-details-on-solar-powered-data-center/13294

in Fuel Cells Solar PV Green Data Centers

Facebook has officially announced the data center that it’s building in the chilly climate of Lulea, in Northern Sweden, and it’s going to be powered “primarily from renewables.” Woot woot! No, not solar or wind but good old hydropower (water and dams), which is still the hands-down cheapest kind of clean power available.

Facebook says it chose Lulea because of the low-cost clean power prices and also because the cold climate can enable Facebook to use the environment to cool the data center, cutting out many of the power-hungry chillers that are commonly used to power data centers. Cooling gear can sometimes account for half of a traditional data center’s power needs.

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/facebooks-swedish-data-center-mostly-powered-by-clean-energy/

in Green Data Centers

Renewable Cloud Power Is Focus of New Project

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and Clarkson University are working with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. on software that will enable cloud computing systems to be powered by renewable energy sources with no loss of performance.

As many businesses have discovered advantages to using cloud computing, there has been a huge increase in cloud provider centers. With more datacenters comes more consumption of electricity. Greenpeace, the environmental group, suggests that as much as 2 percent of electricity globally is currently used by datacenters, and that amount is bound to go up at a rate of 12 percent a year.

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=1402&doc_id=232684&f_src=internetevolution_gnews

in Green Data Centers

Green Data Center Conference Boston

The Green Data Center Conference Boston will convene in conjunction with Cloud Control Conference on July 19-21 at the Hilton Logan Airport in Boston. The Green Data Center Conferences seeks to foster an educational environment that allows participants to analyze new techniques that will not only help the environment, but also save organizations time and money.

Speakers include: Mark Szalkus, GE Digital Energy; Kevin Dalton, Digital Realty Trust, and Neil Rasmussen, SchneiderElectric, among others.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/06/30/green-data-center-conference-boston-2/

in Green Data Centers

Flywheels Keep Data Centers Flying - Spinning disks are starting to replace solid-state batteries for energy storage. Flywheel UPS store electric energy as kinetic energy in the form of heavy, spinning disks, which can produce electricity on demand. A flywheel UPS sitting between the data center and the grid can ensure that little power hiccups won’t knock out the system. Pentadyne, Active Power and VYCON all make flywheel UPSs for data centers; in fact it’s one of their fastest-growing market segments. - http://earth2tech.com/2008/09/26/flywheels-keep-data-centers-flying/

in Green Data Centers

Green IT Is Cheaper, European Businesses Catching on to Savings - Run by IDC, the survey found that nearly half of European companies have already awoken to how much better it is overall to run data centers and operations efficiently, and are incorporating efficient practices. A full 34% have plans already in place, and 15% more have plans going up that will be acted upon within two years. - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/green-it-is-cheap-european-businesses-catching-on.php

in Green Data Centers

Eco Friendly IT Initiatives - Technology will be a key enabler of green initiatives?the network can become a platform to transform how global environmental challenges are managed. Concepts such as alternate and renewable sources of energy, re-cycling, e-waste management, green architecture, eco-friendly computing, green data centers, virtualization, power management and reducing the corporate carbon footprint will gain priority on corporate agendas. - http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20090119/greenit05.shtml

in Green Data Centers

Green Grid Consortium - energy efficiency in data centers - The Green Grid is a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. The Green Grid is focused on the following: defining meaningful, user-centric models and metrics; developing standards, measurement methods, processes and new technologies to improve data center performance against the defined metrics; and promoting the adoption of energy efficient standards, processes, measurements and technologies. - http://www.thegreengrid.org

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