The core of a business enterprise strategy now focuses on sustainable practices and environmental stewardship worldwide. As data centres are an integral element of any business strategy for managing data, organizations are looking for facilities practicing energy efficiency, responsibly. In India, data centre facilities are reducing their carbon footprint by sourcing renewable energy. Green data centres in Chennai are setting a benchmark for others in this regard by creating green buildings with minimum environmental impact.
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Renewable Energy and its Role in Data Centres
If apt measures are not taken, it is estimated that by 2030, data centres will consume 3-13% of global electricity for running their operations, which is currently at 1%. Typically, in a data centre, 11% of the total power is used by storage devices, 43% by servers, 43% by infrastructure (cooling and power systems), and 3% by networks. It is estimated that carbon emission from data centres is nearing that of the airline industry – about 900 billion kilograms of CO2! Therefore, it is crucial to figure out ways to generate power through renewable sources for decreased carbon footprint. Sustainable data centres are becoming critical for increased resource-efficient operation and taking environmental responsibility.
How Are Green Data Centres a Step Towards Enterprise Success?
- Environment and Business Friendly
With the increasing awareness towards environment conservation, colocation centre providers and businesses are moving towards sustainable operations that deploy advanced technologies. Green data centres in Chennai constructed under renewable energy initiatives help in reducing carbon footprint by primarily focusing on energy-efficiency. Innovative technology utilizing renewable energy in data centres is proving to be environment-friendly while also supporting critical business requirements for future-sustainability.
- Green Power
To ensure colocation services are provided without disruption, data centres maintain high power usage. STT GDC India’s green data centres in Chennai support new green captive power generation systems that offer a clean and reliable power source, which is capable of handling critical IT load without interruption. With design and operational excellence, the colocation data centre provider is estimated to source 50% of its energy from green sources by FY22. Keeping sustainability at the forefront, with ESG framework and operational excellence, STT GDC India also aims to reduce its annual carbon emission by switching to maximum renewable energy usage.
Energy Efficiency in Data Centres Supporting Green Initiative
These are some steps that data centres follow to support the ‘Go Green’ initiative:
- Critical Cooling System
As data centres focus on going green, improving the energy efficiency of cooling operations is critical. It is why innovative cooling techniques that can manage excessive heat generated due to increased processor densities are deployed in data centres. This includes technologies like thermal storage system and cooling system economizer.
STT GDC India green data centres in Chennai provide chiller based cooling for its servers. 2N chiller configuration is used with dual headers and piping. This technique optimizes and reduces energy consumption in data centres. Chiller-based cooling equipment transfers heat efficiently which results in energy and cost savings. Its operations typically have low noise and are non-toxic since no chemicals are used in the process.
- Al And ML in Data Centres
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) enhance energy efficiency in data centres. The AI learning system can adapt and learn data of temperatures and pump seeds. Further, it can predict future temperatures and pressures over time using algorithms.
- Rise of Hyperscale
Hyperscale refers to a computer architecture’s ability to scale to respond to the increasing technology demands. Scaling also refers to interconnectivity, infrastructure, memory, and storage resources, which is required to be quantitative and quick. In general hyperscale companies deal with physical infrastructure and related services supported by data centres for enhanced overall performance and quick resolution.
Data centres also should be able to provide power redundancy, minimized downtime, and quick scaling solutions to meet the requirements of an enterprise. Over the past years, a considerable shift in hyperscale computing has been seen. With more global internet giants entering the market, the demand for accommodating hyperscale computing infrastructure in data centres is enormous.
What to look for in a Green Data Centre
- Green Certifications
Stringent environment regulations, the rising cost of energy, standardization, and corporate social responsibility are driving the market towards sustainable data centres. Energy efficiency is also becoming of prime importance for green data centres operations that help optimize an enterprise’s operations. Enterprises today also look for green certifications of data centres. For instance, green building certification and equivalent standards are STT GDC India’s policy for all its new colocation facilities. They have set up clean and renewable energy goals with the ESG framework for obtaining green accreditations.
The two main certifications are:
- Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
- Certified Energy Efficient Data Centre Award
STT GDC India green data centres in Chennai are LEED Gold certified. They have obtained the Environmental Management Systems (EMS)- ISO 14001 certifications for all their data centres.
Frost and Sullivan state that the edge computing market is expected to witness tremendous growth from 2017 to 2022, growing at a CAGR of 36.3%. Therefore, it will lead to enterprises opting for data centre services. Further, they would want data centres utilizing renewable energy to gain a competitive advantage in the market.
STT GDC India is a secure and reliable data centre service provider where sustainability is the core of its facilities. Being the leading innovator of the industry, their green data centres in Chennai are Rated-3 and PCI DSS certified. STT Chennai DC2 is a purpose-built self-sustainable green data centre facility. They have commissioned a 100 KL RO plant to reuse 50% tower’s blown-down water.
Currently, 60% of their total power consumption in data centres in Chennai is from renewable sources.
