Energy-intense data centres seek solutions

Digital infrastructure and continuity solutions provider Vertiv has flagged the environmental and community impacts of data centres as a key industry concern in 2023.

“Data centres will experience increased regulation and third-party oversight in 2023 as the world continues to grapple with the industry’s rising energy and water consumption against the backdrop of ongoing climate change,” says the company.

According to Giordano Albertazzi, Vertiv Chief Operating Officer and President, Americas, the data centre industry is growing rapidly, driving a corresponding rapid increase in energy and water use in data centre facilities.

“The industry has understood that pursuing energy and water efficiency aggressively is key for future success and survival,” Albertazzi says. “Increased regulation is inevitable and will lead to important innovations across our industry. The process may not always be easy or linear, but it can be navigated with the help of expert data centre partners and innovative solutions that can anticipate the changes while meeting the always increasing requirements of the data centre applications.”

The surge in power consumption by data centres in recent years is among various technical and market forces driving the focus on environmental awareness and sustainability in several of the 2023 trends identified by Vertiv’s experts, with three of interest to the cooling industry outlined below.

Data centres face increasing regulation

Mounting pressures to meet consumer demand for energy and water are forcing governments at all levels to take a harder look at data centres and their outsized consumption of those resources, says Vertiv.

Data centres are estimated to be responsible for up to three per cent of global electricity consumption today and projected to touch four per cent by 2030. Vertiv’s experts expect this to prompt increasing governmental scrutiny in 2023. 

According to the US Department of Energy, the water usage effectiveness (WUE) of an average data centre using evaporative cooling systems is 1.8L/kWh. That type of data centre can consume 3-5 million gallons of water per day – similar to the capacity used by a city of 30,000-50,000 people. The industry will continue to take steps to self-monitor and moderate – including an increasing preference for environmentally-friendly thermal designs – but 2023 will see increases in regulatory oversight.

“Organisations across Australia have spent the last few years focusing on how to effectively consume data to fuel innovation, growth, and expansion,” said Robert Linsdell, Managing Director Australia and New Zealand at Vertiv. “But the thirst for increased data continues to escalate energy use, so while policy makers drive progress in Australia’s climate response, we expect to see them seriously consider the regulation that exists in the underlying, energy-intensive infrastructure powering our expanding digital economy. The tech industry will need to respond with solutions to meet these challenges.”

Diesel generators see real competition

Vertiv says the diesel generator has long been an imperfect but inescapable piece of the data centre ecosystem. Largely dormant but still requiring maintenance and fuel replacement, generators also produce carbon emissions operators are desperately trying to avoid.

In 2023, Vertiv’s experts anticipate a preferred alternative will emerge – specifically hydrogen fuel cells. These fuel cells will function much like a generator at first, providing momentary load support, and eventually hold promise for sustained or even continuous operation.

Liquid cooling allows higher densities

After years of relatively static rack densities, data centre operators are increasingly requesting higher-density racks, says Vertiv.

“This is consistent with the maturity of liquid-cooled server technologies and increasing acceptance and adoption of such technologies,” says the company. “The aforementioned increases in server power consumption are happening as the need to add capacity quickly is growing, challenging operators from all sides. This leaves them little choice but to explore the boundaries of existing facilities by adding computing in tight spaces, increasing rack densities, and creating thermal profiles that require liquid cooling.

“While liquid cooling is not a new technology, the early wave of successful, efficient, problem-free deployments in high-density environments has provided proof of concept that will boost adoption in the coming year. The addition of direct-to-chip cooling to new OCP and Open19 standards will only accelerate this trend.”

Photo by Manuel Geissinger.