Posted on 02/11/11
It was interesting to hear the news last week that
Facebook is to build a huge datacentre in Lapland. A decision based
on the opportunity offered by the icy local climate which means
that the energy consumed in cooling the facility will be reduced
significantly.
It is great to see a company at the forefront of
technology and so heavily embedded in modern life thinking in this
way. In some ways it is a nod back to the beginning of the
industrial revolution where Manchester and surrounding towns became
the centre of the Cotton trade. A key factor in this was the
consistently damp local climate which stopped fibres drying out and
snapping when being spun and made the process more efficient. As
technology has progressed we have found ways to overcome the
challenges that the climate presents and can use air conditioning
to create the humid environment required for processing cotton in
any location. In the same vein we can use air-conditioning to
operate data centres in the desert.
However rather than use technology to overcome the
challenges of cooling a data centre Facebook have made the decision
to locate their new datacentre in Lulea. It is easy to transport
data via optical cable and satellite to any corner of the world.
Then rather than using a refrigeration system to produce cooling
for the facility which is the size of 11 football pitches, outdoor
air can simply be passed through the servers to maintain an
appropriate operating temperature. The use of outdoor air in this
way is termed free cooling.
The same philosophy should in fact be applied to all
buildings. Building regulations are becoming ever more stringent in
the level of insulation required which means that the internal
gains from people, lights and computers in most buildings will
provide sufficient heat to maintain comfortable temperatures
throughout the year. The problem is actually then removing the heat
to prevent overheating. Energy intensive air conditioning tends to
be the immediate response of the industry but when our climate is
so temperate for much of the year it is a wasted opportunity not to
use natural ventilation to provide free cooling for our buildings
and make the most of what we've been given….
Dan