by Shane Henson — August 12, 2013—There are many avenues facilities and data center managers can take to reduce a data center’s carbon footprint, and in a recent article published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers outline what they have found to be the best practices to achieve this goal.
The article, Characteristics of Low-Carbon Data Centres, was published by Eric Masanet of Northwestern University, Arman Shehabi of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Jonathan Koomey of Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance.
Their research suggests that the carbon footprint reduction resulting from managing the lifecycle of information technology (IT) devices (through lifetime extension and recycling initiatives) is dwarfed by that of best-practice energy efficiency in the data center.
“Efficient IT device operation is the most important feature to reinforce through policy incentives,” says Masanet.
According to the researchers, best-practice efficiency reduces the emissions from data centers during their operation. It includes such strategies as using the most energy-efficient equipment available, as well as server virtualization and application consolidation, which together lead to higher utilization of each server’s computing capacity.
Low-carbon electricity, for example, from renewable power sources, also contributes substantially to reducing carbon footprint. Therefore where possible, data centers should be located close to access to grids that provide low-carbon electricity.
However, their research suggests that while using renewable electricity helps reduce data center carbon emissions, this strategy must be coupled with best-practice efficiency.
“The critical lesson from this analysis is that existing data centers should maximize IT-device efficiency. “These devices turn over quickly so this strategy can deliver rapid improvements,” says Koomey.
Data centers should also be located in areas with cool outside air. The “free cooling” of appropriate climate zones reduces the need for mechanical cooling, and electricity use, say the researchers.
