The Power Usage Challenge: Improving Data Centre Efficiency

Energy usage in data centres represents a substantial business expense across the industry, accounting for 30–50% of data centre operating costs. With electricity consumption across Europe’s data centres projected to grow by over 70% by 2020, there is a pressing demand for greater energy efficiencies to minimise both carbon footprint and energy consumption. This is a top priority for any operational management team, right up to board level.

As an endorser of the EU Code of Conduct on Energy Efficiency in data centres, Colt is firmly committed to developing solutions and programmes that improve energy efficiency across our data centres – both for new builds and our existing data centre estate.

For new data centre builds, our Colt ftec solution provides an industry-leading Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.21 that greatly reduces both environmental footprint and total operating expenditure. We achieve this through dynamic scaling and efficient use of processing power, right-sizing of mechanical engineering equipment to data centre halls and exceptionally efficient infrastructure provision. Examples include our Netherlands 3 data centre and our recently announced expansion of Verne Global’s facility in Iceland.

Across our wider European estate, our ongoing energy efficiency programme spans 30,000m2 of data centre space and has resulted in significant gains. Over the last three years, our operations team has achieved a like-for-like saving in annual electricity usage of 18%, equivalent to a reduction in carbon footprint of 15,000 tonnes CO2 and savings of €4m in power cost per annum. In recognition of this achievement, Broadgroup awarded Colt the 2013 International Datacentre & Cloud Award for Energy Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability.

We have demonstrated that substantial energy savings can be achieved by targeting efficiencies within individual data halls and across the entire data centre infrastructure, both inside and out. Our experience shows that many of these savings can readily be obtained through a series of simple steps that provide sizeable returns.

Most of the savings we achieved since 2010 resulted from initiatives within the data hall itself and required minimal capital investment. These included initiatives for enhanced airflow management, more accurate measurement systems and tighter tolerance bands for cooling air temperature and humidity.

Our learnings and the measures we implemented to get there are a useful starting point for any organisation looking to drive energy efficiency. With this in mind, we have compiled a white paper outlining ‘12 Simple Steps to Improve Power Usage effectiveness' that can be readily taken with minimal capital investment to improve the power energy efficiency in your data centres.

I hope the findings from our programme prove to be a useful resource for your organisation.