How to Balance Sustainability and Resilience in Data Centre Design

Balancing operational resilience with sustainability in data centre design is a complex, often contradictory challenge. Ensuring uptime during failures is critical, but these measures can inadvertently increase environmental impact.

Balancing resilience is a central challenge in sustainability in data centre design, where performance and environmental impact must be considered together.

The Trade-offs Between Resilience and Sustainability in Data Centre Design

Data centres are designed with redundancy to ensure uninterrupted service during plant failures. Redundancy configurations such as N+1, 2N, or even 2N+1 provide backup systems to maintain operations and ensure continuity.

However, this approach introduces sustainability concerns:

• Increased Embodied Carbon: More plant equipment means higher embodied carbon, particularly in MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) systems. The additional structural steel and concrete required for oversizing further contribute to this carbon load.
• Impact on Efficiency: Oversized equipment may lead to lower operational efficiencies.
• Backup Power Reliance: Diesel-powered generators, which are often relied upon for backup power, remain a major contributor to emissions.
• Higher Resource Consumption: The need for increased plant provision and backup systems leads to more resource consumption.

While redundancy is essential for resilience, these factors must be carefully managed to ensure they don’t conflict with sustainability goals. These trade-offs sit at the core of sustainability in data centre design, where resilience must be balanced with environmental impact.

Location Matters: Reducing Carbon Footprint from the Start

Location strategy is a key factor in sustainability in data centre design, shaping both energy use and long-term performance.

Data centres in colder climates, for example, can leverage free cooling, which reduces energy demand for cooling systems. This, in turn, lowers peak demand and reduces the size of required plant and backup systems. A smaller plant means less embodied carbon, as well as reduced redundancy needs and lower UPS and generator capacity.

Innovations in Backup Power and Efficiency

Modern technologies offer several ways to improve efficiency and reduce emissions:

• Modular UPS Systems: Load switching UPS systems allow individual modules to be powered off during low-demand periods, improving energy efficiency.
• HVO Generators: Replacing diesel generators with hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) produces 10% of emissions compared to diesel, making it a more sustainable backup power option.

These approaches support more efficient operation while maintaining resilience.

Waste Heat Utilisation: Turning a By-product into an Asset

One often overlooked but highly sustainable option is waste heat utilisation.

Data centres naturally generate excess heat, but rather than allowing this to go to waste, it can be harnessed for other purposes. By connecting to district heating networks, data centres can transfer excess heat to nearby communities or industries, reducing the need for additional energy production. For this to be viable, significant investments in infrastructure are needed.

Waste heat reuse is an important consideration in sustainability in data centre design, particularly in regions with established infrastructure, such as Denmark’s Fjenvarme Fyn who are leading the way in this regard.

Water Source Cooling

Cooling is one of the largest energy consumers in a data centre. By situating data centres near bodies of water, the demand for cooling can be significantly reduced. Water has a more consistent temperature than air, which helps to stabilise cooling requirements.

Additionally, emerging concepts such as underwater or floating data centres, like Microsoft’s pilot project in the Orkney Islands, are showing promising results in terms of reduced server failure rates and increased energy efficiency.

Advanced cooling technologies in sustainability in data centre design

Liquid Cooling

This innovative cooling technology eliminates the need for traditional CRAC/CRAH units, reducing potential failure points. It also cools chips more effectively, lowering the likelihood of failure and reducing downtime.

Immersion cooling

This solution immerses servers in a cooling liquid, protecting them from contaminants and maintaining cooling even during power outages. Immersion cooling significantly reduces energy consumption and protects servers from ambient temperature fluctuations.

These two technologies are gaining traction in the industry, becoming increasingly important in sustainability in data centre design. Not only do these cutting-edge cooling methods improve resilience by protecting hardware but also help reduce the overall energy consumption of data centres.

Striking the Right Balance

As the data centre industry continues to evolve, the challenge remains clear: how can we design resilient, high-performing facilities while minimising environmental impact?

By embracing innovative solutions such as modular UPS, HVO backup power, waste heat utilisation, and advanced cooling technologies, the industry can make meaningful progress towards more sustainable operations.

However, progress in sustainability in data centre design depends on striking the right balance between resilience and sustainability, requiring careful consideration at every stage of the design and operational process.

By implementing these strategies, data centres can not only meet the increasing demand for digital infrastructure but also play a key role in driving a more sustainable digital future.

Explore Sustainability in Data Centre Design Solutions

At Black & White Engineering, we collaborate with developers to implement innovative solutions that balance sustainability in data centre design with resilience.

If you’re looking to future-proof your data centre infrastructure, get in touch to continue the conversation.

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